CHARLESTON – West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner and chief election officers in eight other states have joined to bring legal action to try to stop an executive order issued by President Joe Biden they say would federalize state elections.
Warner – along with the secretaries of state of Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Wyoming – filed an amicus brief May 28 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule Executive Order 14019 is unconstitutional and violates the authority granted to the states to regulate elections by the United States Constitution.
Specifically, the secretaries of state seek to protect the voter registration process currently administered by the states.
Biden issued the order March 7, 2021, directing federal agencies to develop ways and means to expand and promote voter registration and to increase participation in vote-by-mail ballot applications. The secretaries of states say the order inappropriately allows federal agencies to use non-appropriated federal funds to fulfill those directives.
"The President's use of executive action to convert federal agencies into get-out-the-vote operations is prohibited by the United States Constitution," Warner said. "The Elections Clause of the Constitution specifically declares that the manner of running elections is left to the states, not the federal government. Registering eligible people to vote is an essential component and manner of running fair and secure elections."
Warner and other state election officials call the order a prime example of partisan federal overreach and "another attempt by the Biden Administration to take control of state elections."
The legal action says neither the National Voter Registration Act nor the Help America Vote Act allow a president to designate federal agencies as voter registration agencies. It says only Congress has the power to override state regulations by establishing uniform rules for federal elections.
"President Biden's executive order is a flagrant example of federal overreach," Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry said. "The Constitution's Elections Clause is clear: election administration is reserved for the states. I am proud to join my fellow elections officials in filing this brief with the Supreme Court."
David Cook, general counsel for the West Virginia Secretary of State's office, and Stephen Connolly of Connolly Advisory Group filed the legal action on behalf of all nine states.