Arizona and 22 other states sued President Donald Trump over a recent executive order seeking to exert more federal control over elections.
Democratic officials argue that Trump doesn’t have the constitutional authority to implement such a widespread change.
The order, signed last Tuesday, would create a federal database of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote, while imposing restrictions on mail-in ballots, such as directing the U.S. Postal Service not to send mail-in or absentee ballots to people unless they were on this list.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes defended the state’s responsibility to run fair and accessible elections.
“The greatest threat to the safety and security of our elections is Donald Trump continuing to lie about them,” Fontes said in a statement.
“Arizona’s elections are run by Arizonans — our neighbors, our friends, and our family. This latest attack on vote-by-mail and voter privacy is a direct attack not just on our voters but on our election administrators who work day in and day out to keep democracy running.”
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes noted that more than 80% of Arizona voters cast their ballots by mail, which includes military families, rural Arizonans and tribal members.
“Donald Trump’s executive order targets all of these voters. But the Constitution is absolutely clear: states run their elections, not the president. And Arizona will not allow the federal government to seize control of our elections,” Mayes noted.
Other states involved in the lawsuit are Massachusetts, California, Nevada, Washington, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Utah Lt. Gov. calls Trump order ‘nonsensical’
Utah has not joined the lawsuit, but its lieutenant governor, who oversees the state’s elections, criticized Trump’s order in a social media post, calling it “nonsensical.”
“POV: When the latest Executive Order reminds you of that time when you were a senior in high school and you performed in a one-act play called ‘Jack or the Submission’ by absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco and it was super weird and the script was full of nonsensical dialogue,” Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson wrote in a post on Threads.
Four civil and voting rights groups — Common Cause, Black Voters Matter, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — have also joined the legal action.
“This executive order targeting mail-in ballots is unlawful and usurps congressional authority in order to stop the midterm elections. This is another blatant attempt to undermine the people’s power,” said Cliff Albright, the co-founder of Black Voters Matter. “We’re joining this lawsuit to stop this administration from silencing the voices of millions of Americans.”
Trump, while unveiling his order, acknowledged it may face legal pushback — “I believe it’s foolproof,” the president said. “And maybe it’ll be tested. Maybe it won’t.”
Experts also question the feasibility of implementing the order before the 2026 midterm elections.
Charles Stewart III, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab, described the order as a “logistical nightmare.”
“What’s important to note is that the federal system doesn’t have reliable and unique information about people on voter rolls,” Stewart said.
Viewing it as a “multiyear project,” he said the Trump administration’s order did not highlight any “funding streams, intergovernmental agreements, vendor capacity, testing cycles, and a hierarchy for resolving conflicts between federal data, state voter files, and local election deadlines” in the fine print.