Attorney General Kathy Jennings has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the federal Election Assistance Commission, and other Trump Administration officials to block Executive Order 14248 (“the Elections Executive Order”), an unconstitutional attempt to impose sweeping voting restrictions across the country.  

“Donald Trump needs to read his constitution,” said AG Jennings. “The President does not have—and even in the depths of our greatest national crises, has never had—the authority to rewrite Delaware’s election laws, to nullify election laws passed by Congress, or to overturn elections. Trying to unilaterally alter election procedures in the world’s oldest constitutional republic is blatantly unlawful and un-American. We are, once again, suing to protect the Constitution and common sense.” 

The challenged provisions include: 

• Forcing the Election Assistance Commission (the Commission) to require documentary proof of citizenship on the Federal mail registration form (the Federal Form). The Commission is an independent, bipartisan, four-member body established by Congress. It is responsible for developing the Federal Form, in consultation with the chief election officers of the States, for the registration of voters for elections for Federal office. In their lawsuit, the attorneys general underscore that Congress has never required documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote using the Federal Form.  
• Commanding the head of each state-designated Federal voter registration agency to immediately begin “assess[ing] citizenship prior to providing a Federal voter registration form to enrollees of public assistance programs.” This aspect of the Elections Executive Order commandeers State agencies and their personnel, forcing States to participate in the President’s unlawful and unnecessary agenda.  
• Requiring military and overseas voters to submit documentary proof of citizenship and eligibility to vote in state elections. The Federal Post Card Application form is used by voters in the military or living abroad to register to vote in federal elections. Federal law unequivocally grants them the ability to register and cast a ballot “in the last place in which the person was domiciled before leaving the United States” — there is no requirement that this form demand documentary proof of citizenship or proof of current eligibility to vote in a particular state. 
• Threatening to withhold various streams of federal funding to the States for purported noncompliance with the challenged provisions. In so doing, the Elections Executive Order seeks to control Plaintiff States’ exercise of their sovereign powers through raw Executive domination, contrary to the U.S. Constitution and its underlying principles of federalism and the separation of powers.  

In filing the lawsuit, Attorney General Jennings joined the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.  

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