Trump Campaign Sues To Prevent Deadly Crime Of Voter Registration

Republicans hate voters, love vote suppression.

It’s election season, and we all know what that means: It’s time for an absolute avalanche of garbage lawsuits from Republicans trying to make it harder for Americans to vote. Because when we vote, they lose.

On Monday, the Trump campaign, RNC, and Michigan GOP marched into the federal courthouse in Kalamazoo, Michigan and dropped a complaint against the governor and secretary of state, as well as the US Small Business Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs. In short, they’re pissed that the state allows a bunch of state agencies to collect voter registration forms, and they want a federal judge to put a stop to it.

No, it can’t be that stupid …

The plaintiffs argue that the legislature deputized the governor in 1995 to designate state and federal offices where citizens may register to vote, but that this was a one-time delegation, and the list remained ever-after frozen in amber and illegal to update.

So 30 years ago, the legislature passed MCL Section 168.509u, which says that “Not later than the thirtieth day after the effective date of this section, the governor shall provide a list to the secretary of state designating the executive departments, state agencies, or other offices that will perform voter registration activities in this state.”

And now these Republican patriots insist that “the Michigan Legislature did not authorize the Governor to unilaterally designate any [voter registration agencies] after February 9, 1995.”

Yes, it really is that stupid.

In December, Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive directive announcing “the first wholesale update of Michigan’s list of voter registration agencies under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) in nearly 30 years. Henceforth, Michiganders will be allowed to register to vote at:

• Michigan Department of Health and Human Services;

• Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs;

• Michigan Rehabilitation Services of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity’s Office of Employment and Training;

• Bureau of Services for Blind Persons of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity’s Office of Employment and Training;

• Wage and Hour Division of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity’s Bureau of Employment Relations;

• Michigan Worker’s Disability Compensation Agency;

• Workforce Development of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity’s Office of Employment and Training; and

• Michigan State Housing Development Authority

All of which sounds pretty good! Are they seriously concerned that undocumented immigrants are going to wander into a state office building and try to pass off false residency and citizenship documents in an attempt to cast a ballot? And who could possibly object to allowing visually impaired voters to register at a state agency dedicated to serving them?

(That’s a joke. The GOP would steal your granny’s walker if they thought it would keep her away from the polls.)

And so the plaintiffs simply omit this list of state agencies, which presumably have a fair idea about the citizenship and eligibility of their customers. Instead they fulminate that the directive “undermines the integrity of elections by increasing the opportunity for individuals to register to vote even though they are ineligible to do so, and by sowing confusion regarding whether the agencies purporting to offer assistance in registering voters are doing so in accordance with applicable law.”

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson continued this alleged crime crime spree against election integrity by negotiating with the Small Business Administration and the VA to register voters in their Michigan facilities. And in an echo of claims the 2020 election didn’t count because state officials made it too easy to vote, these nihilist goons argue that allowing voters to register at unauthorized offices is illegal.

“Because the Governor and Secretary of State lack authority to make unilateral designations of new VRAs, their designations of VA and SBA offices as VRAs are ultra vires and unlawful under Michigan law,” they whine.

But perhaps you are wondering what this transparent effort to suppress the vote is doing in federal court. Why would an Article III judge have jurisdiction over a violation of state law?

The short answer is that they’re gesturing in the direction of the National Voter Registration Act ( 42 USC § 20501 et seq), which authorizes a “person who is aggrieved by a violation of this chapter” to “bring a civil action in an appropriate district court for declaratory or injunctive relief with respect to the violation.” The long answer requires a bit of a rabbit trail (if you will).

Motor Voter

In 1993, after twelve years of Republican presidents who were wholly uninterested in making it easier for people to vote, President Clinton signed the NVRA into law. Known colloquially as the “Motor Voter” bill, the statute was explicitly designed to make it easier for Americans to register to vote on the theory that, if the government increases the pool of registered voters, it will increase overall turnout.

The legislators made explicit findings that:

1. the right of citizens of the United States to vote is a fundamental right;

2. it is the duty of the Federal, State, and local governments to promote the exercise of that right; and

3. discriminatory and unfair registration laws and procedures can have a direct and damaging effect on voter participation in elections for Federal office and disproportionately harm voter participation by various groups, including racial minorities.

And it worked! In the two decades after the law passed, registration increased by seven percent.

Section 20504 of the NVRA required each state make voting registration available to everyone applying for or renewing a drivers’ license — that was the “motor” in “Motor Voter.” And since many poor and disabled people don’t own or drive cars, Section 20506 also required those states to make available and process voter registration applications at “all offices in the State that provide public assistance” and “all offices in the State that provide State-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities.” Finally, Section 20506 also allowed States to “designate other offices within the State as voter registration agencies,” specifically including “State or local government offices such as public libraries, public schools, offices of city and county clerks (including marriage license bureaus), fishing and hunting license bureaus, government revenue offices, [and] unemployment compensation offices,” as well as any other federal or even nongovernmental offices with the permission of said offices.

Section 20510(b) creates a private right of action for any “person who is aggrieved by a violation” of the law, meaning that you can sue if your state refuses to register and enroll eligible voters — something local election officials have done with alarming frequency.

From which the RNC infers that if your state registers voters and you don’t like it, you, too, are entitled to sue. And so when Governor Whitmer designated the Veterans’ Affairs offices as a voter registration agency consistent with Section 20506 of the NVRA (but allegedly inconsistent with Michigan state law), that rendered the motley crew of plaintiffs “aggrieved” persons under the NVRA, giving the federal court subject-matter jurisdiction over the entire case.

Here’s the whole, hand-wavey explanation of how making it easier to register to vote “aggrieves” the RNC:

The RNC has vital interests in protecting the ability of Republican voters to cast, and Republican candidates to receive, effective votes in Michigan elections and elsewhere. The RNC and Michigan GOP have strong interests in ensuring that they and their candidates compete for votes in a lawfully structured competitive environment. The RNC brings this suit to vindicate its own rights in this regard, and in a representational capacity to vindicate the rights of its members, affiliated voters, and candidates.

The RNC and its members are concerned that Defendants’ failure to comply with Michigan statutes governing VRA designation undermines the integrity of elections by increasing the opportunity for individuals to register to vote even though they are ineligible to do so, and by sowing confusion regarding whether the agencies purporting to offer assistance in registering voters are doing so in accordance with applicable law.

“We like to shout nonsense about voter fraud” is not a viable theory of standing, and the plaintiffs cite exactly zero cases saying that it is. That’s particularly true because the express purpose of the NVRA is “to establish procedures that will increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office” and “to make it possible for Federal, State, and local governments to implement this chapter in a manner that enhances the participation of eligible citizens as voters in elections for Federal office.”

The RNC will no doubt point to Section 20501(b)(3), which says that the law is also intended “to protect the integrity of the electoral process,” as a basis for bootstrapping their baseless fraud claims into federal court. But no court anywhere has ever endorsed such a theory of standing, and it is frankly grotesque for Republicans to invert the statute so as to imply a right for third parties to challenge efforts to make it easier to vote.

Simply put, even assuming everything in the RNC’s complaint was true, and Governor Whitmer violated state procedures in designating the VA and SBA as voter registration sites, the remedy would be a state administrative complaint, or at most, a state lawsuit, not a federal complaint. These plaintiffs simply are not “aggrieved” persons under a statute designed to expand voting registration.

We’ve seen a lot of wacko theories of standing lately, of course, although mostly in the Fifth Circuit. There’s no indication that the Western District of Michigan will entertain this ridiculous lawsuit. But Republicans can use this complaint and hundreds of other trollsuits to harass state officials, and then point to the litigation itself evidence that Democrats are trying to commit vote fraud at scale.

Meanwhile at the RNC, Republicans accused Democrats of waging lawfare.

You don’t like it? VOTE FOR THE OLD GUY.