President Joe Biden’s federal interference in state and local election administration is unconstitutional, a lawsuit filed Thursday alleges.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the lawsuit contests Executive Order 14019, a directive signed by Biden in March 2021 that instructed hundreds of federal agencies to interfere in state election administration by using taxpayer money to engage in voter registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) activities. The order required departments to craft “strategic plan[s]” detailing how they intended to comply with the edict and collaborate with so-called “nonpartisan third-party organizations” on voter registration efforts.
“Missouri has a robust and effective election system in place, and it is the responsibility of the states, not the federal government, to manage voter registration and election procedures,” Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, R-Mo., said in a statement. “This legal action is not about partisan politics; it is about maintaining the balance of power between the states and the federal government as intended by our Founding Fathers.”
Ashcroft, Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston, R-Ark., and two local Missouri election officials are plaintiffs in the case.
The plaintiffs argue Biden’s directive is “unconstitutional and contrary to federal law.” Specifically, they claim the edict violates the Constitution’s establishment of separation of powers and “imposes burdens and costs upon state and local government to respond to this federally mandated election scheme in violation of constitutional principles of federalism.” They further contend it violates the Constitution’s elections clause and unlawfully “directs federal executive branch
