North Carolina AG joins lawsuit challenging Trump's mail-in voting restrictions

Kyle Ingram, The News & Observer (Raleigh) on Apr 6, 2026

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RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined over 20 other states in suing the Trump administration over its new executive order that seeks to restrict mail-in voting nationwide.

The lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts federal court on Friday, contends that the new restrictions unconstitutionally strip power from states and could lead to eligible voters being disenfranchised.

“The (executive order) disregards states’ inherent sovereignty and attempts to arrogate to the President the states’ and Congress’s constitutional power to regulate federal elections,” the lawsuit says.

Trump’s order, which was filed last week, would mandate the creation of a nationwide list of approved absentee voters no less than 60 days before an election. The U.S. Postal Service would then be banned from accepting any mail-in ballots from voters not on that list.

In a press release, Jackson said these restrictions could affect North Carolina’s military members, who may be deployed on short notice.

“Under this executive order, our absentee ballots would run a very high risk of being rejected by the post office – essentially thrown in the trash – if we deploy within 60 days of the election,” he said. “That is unacceptable. Whoever wrote this executive order must not understand military voting. I do, and I’ll defend the rights of our service members to cast their lawful – and well-earned – ballots in our elections.”

Defending the order ahead of its signing last week, Trump said that “the cheating on mail-in voting is legendary.”

The president and his allies have repeatedly made false claims about election fraud and have alleged, without evidence, that mail-in voting is rife with cheating.

Jackson’s lawsuit is one of several that have been filed challenging Trump’s order.

Two Republican election officials told ABC News over the weekend that they believed the new restrictions would be overturned.

Separately from the new executive order, North Carolina has already begun working with the Trump administration to use federal databases to find alleged noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.

In a 3-2 vote last year, the State Board of Elections’ Republican majority agreed to enter into a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security to run millions of voters at a time through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or “SAVE” program.

SAVE, a program originally intended to check eligibility for government benefits, has drawn criticism — both nationally and in North Carolina — for using unreliable or outdated information that could incorrectly identify people as noncitizens.

While the board agreed to partner with DHS to use SAVE, the two agencies are still negotiating the details of that agreement.

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