The campaign of former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee have filed a lawsuit against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, alleging the state has violated the National Voter Registration Act.
A complaint filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan asserts that Whitmer lacks the authority to designate federal Small Business Administration (SBA) and Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) offices as voter registration agencies.
“The federal government should not be using American taxpayers’ dollars to conduct unauthorized voter registration activities,” RNC Chairman Michael Watley said in a statement.
Under Section 7 of the NVRA (52 USC 20506), states are actually required to designate agencies for the registration of voters. Subsection 7(a)(3)(A)(ii) says that states may designate “Federal and nongovernmental offices, with the agreement of such offices.” And subsection (b) says that: ” All departments, agencies, and other entities of the executive branch of the Federal Government shall, to the greatest extent practicable, cooperate with the States . . . .”
While I’ve not yet seen the complaint, the apparent theory is only the state legislature and not Governor Whitmer’s office had authority to designate these two federal agencies as voter registration agencies. But I’m not quite sure why, even if true, that would be a violation of the NVRA.