Attorney General Kwame Raoul is leading a coalition of 19 attorneys general in a legal battle against President Trump's recent executive order, which they argue is an unconstitutional crackdown on voter rights. The executive order, issued in March, seeks to enforce stringent requirements such as documentary proof of citizenship for those registering to vote and revises existing procedures for ballot counting, particularly targeting mail-in ballots. In a statement made by the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, Raoul said, "Instead of imposing voting restrictions across the country, we should focus our efforts on encouraging more Americans to participate in the democratic process."
The coalition, which comprises states such as California, New York, and Michigan, argues that the presidential executive order encroaches upon the states' rights to regulate elections—a power that the U.S. Constitution reserves for the states and Congress. They contend that the move not only exceeds the scope of the president's authority but also poses imminent harm should the order not be blocked. As per their filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the attorneys general assert that the provisions will “cause imminent and irreparable harm to the states if they are not enjoined,” the Office of the Illinois Attorney General noted.
Specifically, the suit addresses several alarming aspects of the executive order. This includes a directive for the Election Assistance Commission, an independent bipartisan entity, to mandate citizenship documentation on federal mail voting registration forms—something Congress never required. Additionally, state-designated federal voter registration agencies are compelled to verify citizenship before distributing registration forms to public assistance recipients. Moreover, the order infringes on long-standing practices by states to count timely mail-in ballots post-election day and imposes citizenship documentation requirements on military and overseas voters using the Federal Post Card Application form.
The Trump administration's executive order also carries the threat of withholding federal funding from states found to be noncompliant with its directives. This, according to the legal challenge, is an attempt to "control plaintiff states’ ability to exercise their sovereign powers through raw executive domination, contrary to the U.S. Constitution and its underlying principles of federalism and the separation of powers," as Raoul and his fellow attorneys general seek to protect states' autonomy in managing their own electoral proceedings, as reported by the Office of the Illinois Attorney General.
