President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to set new standards for ballot access is an unconstitutional effort to solve what election officials see as largely non-existent flaws in American elections, attorneys general say in the latest lawsuit challenging the president’s executive orders. Connect icut is one of 19 states that filed suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Boston challenging an executive order prompted at least in part by the president’s discredited claim that foreign migrants were recruited to illegally vote in U.S. elections. “The Constitution plainly forbids the President from commandeering state election officials to manipulate and micromanage how we vote. We are suing to stop the order and to protect our democracy and our right to cast our ballots in free and fair elections,” Attorney General William Tong said in a statement Friday. The suit is at least the ninth that Tong, a Democrat, has joined in challenges to Trump since he returned to the White House in January. Trump signed an executive order on March 25 that directs the federal Election Assistance Commission to ensure that states require a passport or other documentary proof of citizenship for voting and that no mailed ballots be accepted after Election Day, as some states other than Connecticut allow. “Despite pioneering self-government, the United States now fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections employed by modern, developed nations, as well as those still developing,” Trump wrote in an executive order titled, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The order reflects Trump’s continuing claims that his loss in the 2020 election was the result of massive fraud, which have been rejected by numerous courts and senior members of his own first administration. It directs state election officials to review their voting rolls, as well as denying ballots to those without proof of citizenship. “Free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion are fundamental to maintaining our constitutional Republic,” Trump wrote. “The right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution, is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election.” Voter fraud is undeniably real, but the very “patchwork of voting systems” the president decries is often cited as one of the barriers to large-scale fraud. American elections are conducted by local governments, using paper ballots in nearly every jurisdiction. Trump’s order would impose an onerous and unnecessary burden on elections officials and voters, the lawsuit says. “We need election policies that protect the rights of all citizens and preserve the integrity of our democracy, not additional unfunded mandates that leave states like Connecticut to bear the astronomical costs of compliance. This executive order only would make voting harder and less accessible, harm election integrity, and increase costs for taxpayers,” Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas said. Thomas previously has said that such efforts would be a solution in search of a problem, noting research indicating that not only is large-scale fraud impossible, but voting by noncitizens is exceedingly rare. Trump first claimed widespread fraud in 2016, when he was elected despite losing the popular vote. In a review of 42 voting jurisdictions, where local officials oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes in 2016, The Brennan Center for Justice found an estimated 30 cases of suspected noncitizen voting. “In other words, improper noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001% of the 2016 votes in those jurisdictions,” the center concluded. Trump’s order cites federal laws establishing a national Election Day in ordering that states abandon mail-in ballots in which votes are cast on or before Election Day but are not received until after the polls are closed. (Connecticut requires that mail-in ballots be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted.) The lawsuit says Trump’s executive order “relies on a fundamentally incorrect interpretation of federal Election Day statutes to support this command, which itself is an unconstitutional invasion of State and Congressional election regulation.” The attorneys general also claim in their suit that Trump misunderstands or misrepresents the role, practices and authority of the Election Assistance Commission. “To protect our elections, Congress required the Commission to operate independently,” they said. “It also required the Commission to make its decisions under standards of bipartisanship, reasoned decision-making, and collaboration with the States, which actually administer the Nation’s elections. The Elections EO seeks to eradicate all those safeguards — aiming to force the Commission to rubberstamp the President’s policy preferences on, among other things, voter registration and voting systems.” The other states behind the suit are Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. ...read more read less