The attorneys general of Oregon and Washington today filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s unconstitutional executive order attacking elections and voting rights.
The president’s illegal order will make it harder to vote, erode public confidence in our elections, and make elections more expensive for states to administer. The order’s confusing language about proof of citizenship requirements makes it possible that any state voting system could be de-certified by the federal government.
“President Trump’s executive order is nothing more than a blatant attempt to rig the system and suppress votes,” Rayfield said. “He’s trying to make it harder for people to vote. It’s a direct assault on the Constitution and a brazen attempt to act like a king, dictating how states should run their elections. No president, no matter how hungry, gets to strip away our right to run our own voting system in Oregon or any other state.”
“Oregon citizens have the right to hold their politicians accountable at the ballot box. It is our responsibility as a state to defend that right and run secure, fair elections,” Read said. “The Trump Administration does not have the power to take away Oregonians’ rights to vote and the funding we need to run secure elections. This Executive Order is nonsense. It’s illegal. And, it will not stand.”
The lawsuit states the obvious – the Constitution’s Elections Clause gives states the authority to run their own elections, with exceptions for actions by Congress. But this executive order, signed by a president who still falsely claims to have won the 2020 presidential election, also violates the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act by unfairly making it harder to vote.
The lawsuit seeks to declare most provisions of the order unconstitutional and prevent the federal government from implementing or enforcing them.
President Trump’s attacks on elections and voting are well-documented, though his evidence to support them is not. He blamed his 2020 election loss on widespread fraud that was proven to be false. An Associated Press analysis of the six battleground states former President Biden won in the 2020 election found a combined total of 475 potentially fraudulent votes, while Biden won those states by a combined 311,257 votes.
Trump has made similarly false claims about vote-by-mail. Oregon was the first state in the country to use vote by mail in a presidential election and that voting system has been administered by secretaries of state who were both Republican and Democrat. Both Oregon and Washington have championed this type of voting, which is safe and secure, and popular with voters because of how it improves access to democracy.
The order would require votes sent by mail to arrive no later than Election Day to be counted, even though 18 states, including Washington and Oregon, accept ballots postmarked on or before Election Day.
The order’s illegal and burdensome proof of citizenship requirements will disenfranchise voters. About 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age do not have such documents readily available, according to a 2023 report by the Brennan Center for Justice.
