BOSTON (KEYT) – California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of 23 other attorneys general have filed for a summary judgement in their legal challenge to the Trump Administration's unprecedented attempt to federalize elections.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Bonta, the Governor of Pennsylvania, and attorneys general from 23 other states filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging that Executive Order No. 14399, issued on March 31, 2026, unlawfully asserts federal oversight of elections nationwide.
"President Trump's executive order [Ensuring Citizenship Verification And Integrity In Federal Elections EO No. 14399] not only represents a dangerous attempt to erode public trust in free and fair elections; it also reeks of desperation. Facing clear political headwinds — as he and Republicans are likely to suffer heavy losses in the upcoming midterm elections — he is throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks. This will not," explained Attorney General Bonta in a press release Friday. "We are seeking summary judgment because we firmly believe that the law is on our side and that the case can be decided expeditiously. President Trump has used mail voting himself. If it's good enough for him, it should be accessible to other voters without unnecessary and unlawful obstacles."
The U.S. Constitution states in Article I, Section 4 that decisions regarding, "the times, places, and manner of holding Elections" are delegated to Congress and managed by each state.
The Section does not mention any executive branch position, office, or department.
Regardless, Executive Order No. 14399 made sweeping changes to national elections in the following ways:
Tasked the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration to create a list of voters using federal databases and transmit that voter list to elections officials in each state at least 60 days before any federal election Directed the Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service to develop lists of voters enrolled with the federal agency for mail-in voting and coordinate with the Department of Justice to investigate any use of mailed elections materials outside of federally authorized mail-in voting Ordered the Attorney General of the United States to take all lawful steps to stop non-compliance with the new elections rules and required states and localities to preserve all records of voter participation in any federal election for five years"Neither the Constitution nor any act of Congress confers upon the President the authority to mandate sweeping changes to States’ electoral systems or procedures," argued the lawsuit filed earlier this month. "The EO [Executive Order] erects shadow voter eligibility lists within the federal government and uses threats of investigation and prosecution to coerce States into disenfranchising voters missing from those lists. It also directly interferes with mail voting by mandating that the United States Postal Service ("USPS") refuse to deliver voted ballots unless the voters are on USPS's precleared list, which is maintained outside the control of the States who administer federal elections. Finally, the EO purports to lengthen the existing period for elections officials to preserve elections records to facilitate threatened prosecutions, contradicting existing requirements in state and federal law. Plaintiff States challenge and seek relief from each of these provisions."
The lawsuit noted that the changes would requires states to revise their respective election-related laws and procedures even after some states have already held primaries or are about to and months before standard voting procedures for the 2026 General Election begin nationwide.
The request for a summary judgement filed this week would render a judgement before a full trial is held and ensure elections nationwide would not be fundamentally altered the same year as an election.
This isn't the first attempt to federalize elections during President Trump's second term.
On March 25 of last year, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14248 which was met with a different lawsuit filed by a coalition of Attorneys General including Attorney General Bonta.
The group of state prosecutors secured a preliminary injunction that remains in effect and a motion to dismiss that lawsuit was denied by a federal judge in District Court in Massachusetts.
In addition to those sweeping, unilateral Executive Orders, the Department of Justice sent formal requests to over 40 states and Washington D.C. for copies of their respective voter lists and multiple states including California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Pennsylvania were sued by the federal government to force them to turn over their voter lists.
In December of last year, an additional six states were also sued by the Justice Department for not turning over voter information.
"Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance," argued former-Attorney General Pamela Bondi in December of last year. "The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards."
Federal law does require states to maintain accurate voter rolls and allow people in most states to register to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles, but does not authorize the Department of Justice to participate in that maintenance.
Earlier this week, lawyers on behalf of the Justice Department informed a federal judge in New Mexico that it did not intend to use the collected voter data to remove people from voter rolls.
"One of the other points that was made was that counsel, at times, have suggested that the United States wants to engage in list maintenance. That is simply not true," stated Justice Department Civil Rights Division attorney James Tucker during court proceedings on Tuesday. "The purpose of doing this is for the purpose of assessing whether or not the state is engaged in reasonable list maintenance procedures."
But, a Memorandum of Understanding issued by the Department of Justice to states that have turned over voter information requires those states to remove voters deemed ineligible by the Justice Department within 45 days of receiving notice.
Last month, CBS News reported that the Justice Department is finalizing a deal to share voter information with the Department of Homeland Security and in October of last year, a class action lawsuit, League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, filed in federal court in Washington D.C., sought to halt the requests for voter information as well as the use of an existing federal database to double check state's voter registrations.
The database, known as the Systemic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, is a decades-old tool for state and federal agencies to verify citizenship status for people looking to access government programs or licenses.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, election officials in compliant states have already used the database to check the status of more than 33 million voters by September of last year.
Several states established new agreements with the federal government to expand the use of the SAVE database or announced its use to purge voter rolls, and the Department of Homeland Security made millions of dollars in election security funding for states dependent on the use of the database and compliance with submitting state information to the federal government.
"We encourage states with questions to work with their state election offices for basic implementation requirements," shared the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which manages most election security grant program. "If any state is not found to be compliant, we reserve the right to withhold funding or terminate the grants."
One notable change made last year to the conditions for states to access federal election security funding included the removal of language that prohibited the use of the federal funds, "to suppress voter registration or turnout" stated members of the U.S. Senate in their letter to former-Attorney General Bondi in January of this year.
Also in January of this year, a federal judge dismissed the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit seeking access to Californian's private voter information calling the attempt, "unprecedented and illegal".
"The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) seeks an unprecedented amount of personal information related to California voters from California’s unredacted voting rolls. The requested information includes the names, social security numbers, home addresses, voting history and other sensitive information of nearly 23 million Californians," wrote Federal District Judge David O. Carter in January's decision to dismiss the federal government's request. "The Department of Justice seeks to use civil rights legislation which was enacted for an entirely different purpose to amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data. This effort goes far beyond what Congress intended when it passed the underlying legislation. The centralization of this information by the federal government would have a chilling effect on voter registration which would inevitably lead to decreasing voter turnout as voters fear that their information is being used for some inappropriate or unlawful purpose. This risk threatens the right to vote which is the cornerstone of American democracy."
Later the same month, over a quarter of the U.S. Senate signed a letter demanding an end to the Department of Justice's nationwide pursuit of private voter information.
"[T]he States are merely an "agent" for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them," argued President Trump in a Truth Social post on Aug. 18, 2025. "Democrats are virtually Unelectable without using this completely disproven Mail-In SCAM. ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING, and everybody, IN PARTICULAR THE DEMOCRATS, KNOWS THIS. I, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WILL FIGHT LIKE HELL TO BRING HONESTY AND INTEGRITY BACK TO OUR ELECTIONS. THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!!"
Despite multiple public statements railing against mail-in voting, President Trump has voted multiple times, even as recently as last month, by mail.
Congress already passed legislation regarding federal elections standards, including mail-based voting procedures, most recently through the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002.
"Congress has established limited baseline requirements for federal elections, most often leaving the States considerable discretion in how to meet those requirements. Especially relevant here, Congress has set forth requirements for voter registration and mandated certain mail voting procedures," noted the lawsuit filed by 24 attorneys general and the Governor of Pennslyvaniae earlier this month. "In sum, UOCAVA [Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act], the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act], and HAVA [Help America Vote Act] provide strictly limited and specified roles for the federal government in States' election administration. None of these statutes confer any unilateral authority to the President relevant to the EO [Executive Order No. 14399]."
"Congress has established numerous criminal penalties for individuals who seek to interfere with free and fair elections, including by unlawfully attempting to register to vote or vote and providing false voting-related information," added Friday's lawsuit.
The White House created a website as part of its lobbying efforts for an election reform bill known as the SAVE America Act still making its way through Congress, a potential illegal use of taxpayer funds noted members of Congress in a letter to a federal watchdog in February of this year.
Changes implemented by the U.S. Postal Service in April, July, and December of last year have already impacted mailed ballots locally.
In October of last year, the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder's Office warned that people living more than 50 miles from a postal processing hub should no longer assume their ballots will be postmarked the day they mail it and in December of the same year, the U.S. Postal Service finalized the ballot processing changes.
Every single voter in San Luis Obispo County lives more than 50 miles from the U.S. Postal Service hub in Goleta and voters are now encouraged by the local elections supervisor as well as the U.S. Postal Service to mail their ballots at least one week before Election Day.
State law allows ballots to be received up to seven days after an election and still be counted, but ballots that are not postmarked by Election Day are not counted.
The Trump Administration's response to the request for a summary judgement is due by May 7 of this year and a hearing on the pending motions is scheduled on June 2.
"The DOJ's request for the sensitive information of Californians stands to have a chilling effect on American citizens like political minority groups and working-class immigrants who may consider not registering to vote or skip casting a ballot because they are worried about how their information will be used," noted Judge Carter in his dismissal of the Justice Department's demands for Californian's voter information. "The taking of democracy does not occur in one fell swoop; it is chipped away piece-by-piece until there is nothing left. The case before the Court is one of these cuts that imperils all Americans."
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