NAACP LDF Lawsuit: Trump Violated Voting Rights Act

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has filed a federal lawsuit against Donald Trump and his campaign, on behalf of Black voters on Friday, accusing both of violating the Voting Rights Act.

According to The Huffington Post, the lawsuit argued that Trump is pressuring election officials to not certify votes in Michigan based on false allegations of election fraud in an attempt to suppress votes, particularly those of Black voters.

Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., released a statement explaining that fraud allegations have been “consistently debunked and the campaign’s litigation attempts turned away by courts in several states.” Most recently, in Pennsylvania.

“The president’s use of dog whistles to suggest the illegitimacy of votes cast by Black voters in Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Atlanta are an appeal to a dangerous and corrosive racialized dangerous narrative of voter fraud,” Ifill added.

This lawsuit is calling for Trump and his campaign to halt any efforts to disenfranchise American voters.

Defendants are “openly seeking to disenfranchise Black voters, including voters in Detroit, Michigan,” the suit alleged. “Repeating false claims of voter fraud, which have been thoroughly debunked, Defendants are pressuring state and local officials in Michigan not to count votes from Wayne County, Michigan, … and thereby disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters.”

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 “protects against efforts to intimidate or coerce officials to disenfranchise Black voters,” Ifill said of the Trump campaign’s attempts to violate that act.