Democrats Sue Trump Administration Over Alleged Election Interference, Claim Officials Are Being Intimidated

Democratic organizations and lawmakers sued the Trump administration, claiming it was attempting to interfere with and intimidate state election officials.

The lawsuit sought to stop the administration from forcing states to purge voter rolls, arguing its actions interfered with states' constitutional authority to organize and run elections. The lawsuit also alleges that the administration is using bogus claims of election fraud to justify an action that could disenfranchise thousands of voters.

"For over a decade now, President Donald J. Trump has bombarded the American people with lies and misinformation about American elections and voter fraud. While these lies have been debunked at every turn, that has never deterred the President from employing them as a pretext to seize control over elections," reads a passage of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit points out that the Department of Homeland Security claimed it had found 16,000 noncitizens on voter rolls and demanded that they be purged. Eventually, DHS reduced the figure to 185, then to zero after Nevada officials said that everyone on the list was actually U.S. citizens.

"More glaringly, the administration recently demanded that California—with just 48 hours' notice—refuse to issue ballots to more than 20,000 registered voters or, if already issued, segregate and refuse to count their ballots," the lawsuit states. "That list, too, has proven remarkably slapdash—upon just a cursory sample review, the Los Angeles County Registrar found that many of these registrations had already been cancelled and that more than a quarter of the sample reflected individuals who listed a birthplace within the United States, among many other errors."

Trump has repeatedly claimed that widespread voter fraud led to his defeat in 2020; however, he has not won any claim in court. In fact, more than 60 lawsuits were filed regarding President Trump's claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. None of the lawsuits were found to have merit, despite some being heard by judges who had been appointed by Republicans, including Trump himself.

According to the Campaign Legal Center: "The various claims of evidence alleging a stolen 2020 election have been exhaustively investigated, litigated and found to be without merit."

One high-profile case involving election fraud claims almost went to trial in 2023. Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for defamation over election-fraud claims the network reported. Rather than proceed and show its reporting of potential fraud had merit, Fox admitted it promoted lies and agreed to pay Dominion $787 million.

Regardless, President Trump has continued to make unsubstantiated assertions of election fraud related to the 2020 election. The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have used those assertions to interfere in state and local election matters.

"This pattern of intimidation is not rooted in any legitimate belief that election officials are engaged in misconduct; rather, it is meant to frighten officials into complying with the administration's demands to unlawfully remove voters from the rolls," the lawsuit asserts.

The administration has said that its actions are consistent with election law and that the Department of Justice is charged with enforcing federal election laws.

"The Justice Department enforces federal election law, and election integrity is a top priority," a DOJ spokesperson told Axios.

"Every action the Department has taken to protect the integrity of this year's elections is grounded in the law and being litigated in open court. Ensuring that only eligible citizens vote and that every lawful ballot is counted is a requirement of federal law," the DOJ told Axios in a statement.

As for the California issue, the Justice department stated that it was fully appropriate to verify the citizenship over people on voter rolls.

"We notified California that noncitizens are likely registered to vote, and we asked the state to independently verify the citizenship of any ballots cast by people on a list that we provided. It refused to do so. Federal law doesn't permit this willful blindness," the DOJ told Axios.