(The Center Square) – Violation of the separation of powers and North Carolina’s sovereignty and authority to administer elections are the grounds to void an executive order from the president, a lawsuit joined by the state says.
Issued on Tuesday of last week, an executive order from second-term Republican President Donald Trump would create a national list of verified eligible voters and restrict mail-in voting. North Carolina’s elections allow mail-in voting to anyone registered and requesting a ballot within the framework of the state laws.
First-term Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson pointed out the military presence in North Carolina, estimated at about 100,000 active duty, in explaining why he added the state to Friday’s filing of the lawsuit in the U.S District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
“Under current law, we can request and receive absentee ballots up until the day before the election, which matters because deployments can happen fast,” Jackson said in a release. “Under this executive order, our absentee ballots would run a very high risk of being rejected by the post office – essentially thrown in the trash – if we deploy within 60 days of the election. That is unacceptable. Whoever wrote this executive order must not understand military voting. I do, and I’ll defend the rights of our servicemembers to cast their lawful – and well-earned – ballots in our elections.”
North Carolina is one of 23 states, plus the District of Columbia, listed as a plaintiff. Defendants, in their official job capacity, are Trump; the U.S. Department of Justice, and interim Attorney General Todd Blanche; U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary Markwayne Mullin; the U.S. Social Security Administration, and Commissioner Frank Bisignano; and the U.S. Postal Service, and Postmaster General and CEO David Steiner.
Other defendants are tied to the Postal Service. The case is commonly known as California v. Trump.
Relief is sought, the litigation says, asking the court to “issue a judicial declaration that the challenged provisions of the executive order are unconstitutional and void because they are ultra vires and violate both the separation of powers and the States’ sovereignty and authority over elections in the United States Constitution.”
The suit asks the court to both preliminarily and permanently “enjoin all defendants” except for Trump from implementing and enforcing the order.
“The cheating on mail-in voting is legendary,” Trump said. “It’s horrible what’s going on. I think this will help a lot with elections.”
In the order, Trump asks Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create the eligible voter list. From that list, it tells the U.S. Postal Service to only send absentee ballots to those on the approved list.
In North Carolina, the 100 county boards of elections have responsibility to answer requests for absentee ballots. Those panels are trained in election law and administration protocols. The window for requests generally opens in the neighborhood of two months prior to the Election Day.
