BOSTON, April 3 - Democratic attorneys general from 22 states, together with the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston on Friday challenging a presidential executive order that tightens the rules for voting by mail.
The complaint joins an expanding set of legal challenges to the order, which was signed by President Donald Trump earlier this week and is also being contested by party organizations and voting rights groups. The plaintiffs argue the directive amounts to an unlawful federal intrusion into matters the Constitution leaves to the states.
"Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and no president has the power to rewrite the rules on his own," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The executive order instructs the administration to create a roster of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and to make use of federal data to assist state election officials in verifying voter eligibility. It further requires the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to voters who appear on each state's approved mail-in ballot list. In addition, the order mandates that states retain election-related records for a period of five years.
The state attorneys general contend that the order violates the U.S. Constitution and unlawfully interferes with mail-in voting by directing the Postal Service to withhold delivery of ballots on the basis of criteria outside the control of state election authorities. They warn that if the order remains effective, states would be forced to undertake hurried overhauls of their election systems ahead of the November midterm elections, creating potential chaos and likely disenfranchising eligible voters.
President Trump has for years pressed the false claim that his 2020 election loss was the result of widespread voter fraud and has advocated for stricter mail-in voting rules as the country approaches the November midterms. Separately, he has urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and a photo identification to cast a ballot. That bill cleared the U.S. House of Representatives in February but faces steep challenges in the Senate.
The new lawsuit in Boston adds to a cluster of litigation from Democratic-aligned entities and voting rights advocates challenging various aspects of the executive order and related voting measures. The legal battle is expected to play out in the federal courts as parties on multiple sides press competing views about the proper balance of federal and state authority over election administration and the mechanics of mail-in voting.