Attorney General Raoul Moves To Permanently Block President Trump’s Executive Order Exerting Control Over State Elections

CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 23 states, filed a motion for summary judgment in their ongoing challenge to President Trump’s executive order that unlawfully restricts voter eligibility and who can receive mail ballots while trampling on states’ constitutional authority to administer elections.

“President Trump does not have the constitutional authority to make or alter laws governing federal elections,” Raoul said. “The law is clear that states like Illinois have authority to regulate the time, place and manner of federal elections. This is why my colleagues and I are asking the court to permanently block this unlawful executive order. I will continue to fight to protect the fundamental right to vote for all Americans.”

On March 31, President Trump signed an executive order attempting to establish a national list of eligible voters and directing the U.S. Postal Service to transmit mail ballots only to those on the list. In the order, the president threatens states and election officials with criminal prosecution and the loss of federal funding if they do not comply with his demands.

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Earlier this month, Raoul joined the same coalition in bringing a lawsuit against the administration, arguing that the order would require states to act contrary to their own voter roll procedures, vote-by-mail systems and voter registration laws. State and federal law entitle all eligible voters to cast ballots and have their votes counted in state and federal elections. The states filing this lawsuit permit registered voters to cast their ballots by mail if they meet their state’s requirements for doing so. Voters of all parties, in all states and of every demographic utilize mail-in voting, including the president himself.

Raoul and the coalition’s motion for summary judgment asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to permanently block enforcement of the key provisions of the executive order. The coalition’s motion for summary judgment argues that the executive order:

• Attempts to dictate federal voter eligibility lists for each state, and to coerce states to deny ballots to voters excluded from those lists, which unconstitutionally invades the coalition states’ power over their voter rolls.
• Attempts to charge the states and the Postal Service with compiling mail voter eligibility lists and prohibit the Postal Service from transmitting mail ballots from voters not on those lists, which is unconstitutional and runs headlong into states’ and Congress’ authority to regulate elections and Congress’ power to regulate the Postal Service.
• Threatens serious injury to the coalition states, including harms to the states’ sovereign powers to administer their elections, fiscal injuries from states being forced to administer elections under the federal government’s new procedures, legal jeopardy to states and their elections officials resulting from the executive order’s directives to investigate and prosecute those who issue ballots to individuals purportedly ineligible to vote in a federal election, and harms to states’ reputations and public trust.

Joining Raoul in filing this motion are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania.

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