Civil rights groups, including the NAACP, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging President Donald Trump’s effort to overhaul the election system.
The executive order, which Trump signed on March 25, requires stricter voting regulations in federal elections, including showing proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is among the groups representing the plaintiffs in the complaint.
“We know that providing documentation in general tends to fall more heavily on people who are already having so many obstacles thrown in their lives at them,” ACLU attorney Sophia Lin Lakin told ABC News. “These are real barriers for populations that unfortunately intersect very much with voters of color.”
Lakin highlighted logistical obstacles such as transportation, childcare responsibilities and financial barriers that could prevent people from obtaining and paying out of pocket for documents like passports and naturalization certificates.
The order directs the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an independent agency of the U.S. government that supports election officials, to require people to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote to prevent noncitizens from voting.
This comes after the president and his Republican allies characterized noncitizen voting during the 2024 presidential campaign as widespread — a false claim that was debunked by experts and by a spate of GOP-led inquiries in the weeks leading up to the election, which found that noncitizen voting is extraordinarily rare.
“Using this very racialized, this very xenophobic fear mongering — it’s really just a vehicle for voter suppression to justify imposing requirements that are going to silence a certain segment of the population,” Lakin, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, told ABC News.
Plaintiffs in Tuesday’s lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, include organizations that advocate for voting right across the country: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote, the Hispanic Federation, National League of Women Voters, League of Women Voters of Arizona, League of Women Voters Education Fund and Asian Pacific American Advocates (OCA).
The complaint names Trump and EAC officials as defendants. ABC News has reached out to the White House and EAC but requests for comment on the lawsuit were not immediately returned.
The lawsuit, which is known as “League of Women Voters v. Trump,” argues that the president “has no authority to make or change the rules for conducting federal elections,” — a claim that was also made in a similar federal lawsuit challenging this executive order that was filed in D.C. court on Monday by The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) – the largest civil rights organization in the U.S.
“In the [Executive Order] the President attempts to usurp the power to regulate federal elections from Congress, the States, and an independent agency to which Congress delegated certain limited responsibilities,” plaintiffs argue in the “League of Women Voters v. Trump,” claiming that the president is violating the “constitutional separation of powers.”
Existing federal law, as outlined in the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, already requires anyone who registers to vote to swear to their citizenship under penalty of perjury, but it does not require individuals to present documents to demonstrate proof of citizenship when they register.
The executive order directs the EAC to revise its national mail voter registration form within 30 days of the order’s issuance to require voters to show proof of citizenship through a U.S. passport, a state-issued driver’s license or identification card, an official military identification card or a valid federal or state government-issued photo identification. The order mandates that all documents provided should show proof of citizenship, but many state or government-issued ID’s, including drivers licenses, don’t show an individual’s citizenship.
The lawsuit argues that requiring documentation to prove citizenship “would impose a severe burden on, if not wholly disenfranchise, millions of voters” who face various barriers, including financial and logistical, that prevent them from obtaining the required documentation.
Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, on Jan. 3, Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy introduced H.R. 22 — legislation known as the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act” or the SAVE Act — a bill that would require people to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections.
“Like the SAVE Act, this executive order is part of a broader voter suppression strategy designed to silence eligible voters rather than protect election integrity,” Lakin said.
As the U.S. House considers the SAVE Act this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson House and GOP leaders urged bipartisan support for the legislation in a statement on Monday.
“American citizens — and only American citizens — should decide American elections,” the statement says. “This legislation cements into law President Trump’s executive action to secure our voter registration process and protect the voices of American voters. We urge all our colleagues in the House to join us in doing what the overwhelming majority of people in this country rightfully demand and deserve.”
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous and Olivia Rubin contributed to this report.
The post Civil rights groups sue Trump over EO requiring proof of citizenship to vote appeared first on ABC News.
