The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit against New Jersey over its plan to mail ballots to every registered voter in the state, CNN reports.
The Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and the New Jersey Republican State Committee filed a lawsuit to overturn Gov. Phil Murphy’s executive order intended to address in-person voting concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Murphy announced that the state would mail ballots to all voters and voters will have the choice to mail them in or submit them in person.
The lawsuit claims that the executive order bypassed the legislature, which has the authority to decide election rules.
The suit claims that the "system will violate eligible citizens' right to vote" and that "fraudulent and invalid votes dilute the votes of honest citizens and deprive them of their right to vote in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Murphy rejects lawsuit:
Murphy responded to the lawsuit at a press conference, telling reporters that "the President's campaign is putting itself on record as wanting to delegitimize our November election instead of working with us to ensure that voters rights are upheld alongside public health."
Murphy vowed to defend his order “vigorously.”
"So as they say, bring it on," he added.
Changes came after pandemic primary:
Murphy told CNN that the order was issued based on the success of the state’s primary earlier this year.
"We mailed ballots to folks who were registered in either party. We mailed applications to those who weren't. And we also provided in-person voting capacity at least 50% in each county and at least one location in each municipality. It was a success. Not perfect, but overwhelmingly a success," he said.
Murphy added that because of certain issues in the primary , the state will "have more presence of secure drop boxes, make sure there is that physical in voting capacity, and as it relates to mail-in ballots, the good news is in a general election, it doesn't matter what party you're in, everybody gets a ballot."
He added that voters that want to cast ballots in person can "do what we call 'provisional voting' because the folks won't necessarily know at the voting location whether or not whether you actually already mailed a ballot in. That's what we did in the primary. Little bit more cumbersome, but it works."
