A group of voting-rights groups has filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit filed last week by Louisiana’s attorney general that seeks to impose a citizenship-verification requirement for voter registration in the state.
Murrill
The groups – affiliated with the League of Women Voters, Voice of the Experienced, NAACP and the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice – filed their motion April 17 in the Western District of Louisiana. They argue that Attorney General Liz Murrill’s lawsuit against the federal Election Assistance Commission attempts to impose new voting requirements that run afoul of the National Voter Registration Act and will depress turnout among elderly, rural and low-income residents of Louisiana.
Act 500, which was enacted in 2024, requires residents to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote, but the law does not specify which documents can be used to do so.
In a statement last week when Louisiana v. EAC was filed, Murrill said, “Only citizens should vote in Louisiana elections,” adding that, “The Election Assistance Commission should not be getting in the way of the state’s sovereign right to protect the integrity of its elections.”
The EAC’s refusal to honor Louisiana’s request to require citizenship verification impedes upon the state’s constitutional powers to enforce voter qualifications, according to Murrill’s office. The lawsuit calls on the court to declare the EAC’s refusal illegal.
Murrill’s lawsuit, which was filed on April 14, says the Louisiana Department of State determined that as of May of last year, 403 non-citizens were on the state’s voter rolls. The department allowed these individuals a chance to confirm their citizenship status, according to the lawsuit, but none of them did and their names were removed from the voter rolls.
Louisiana’s registered voters number 2,874,643, according to the nonprofit Independent Voter Project. That means the 403 non-citizens represented 0.014% of the state’s registered voters. Put another way, 99.986% of Louisiana’s registered voters in May of 2025 appear to be U.S. citizens.
In addition to the voting-rights groups, the National Council of Jewish Women, Greater New Orleans Chapter, has filed a motion to intervene in the Louisiana v. EAC case. The council chapter and the League of Women Voters of Louisiana (LWVL) have filed separate lawsuits opposing the state’s proof-of-citizenship law.
“This is Louisiana’s latest attempt to burden voter registration for all Louisianans,” M. Christian Green, the LWVL president, said in a prepared statement. “Instead of standing up for its voters, Louisiana is suing a neutral voter protection agency – the Election Assistance Commission – to ensure it can further limit voter registration.”
The national League of Women Voters argues that no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud exists and that Louisiana’s approach to voter registration would block eligible Americans from registering to vote.
Sophia Lin Lakin, the ACLU Voting Rights Project’s director, said her organization stopped a similar effort attempted by President Trump in an executive order and would seek the same outcome in this case.
“Louisiana is demanding a federal agency to rewrite the national voter registration form to impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements that Congress never authorized, threatening to turn a uniform federal safeguard into a vehicle for voter suppression,” Lin Lakin said.
The ACLU is among several groups that are representing the voting-rights groups, who are seeking to intervene as defendants in Louisiana v. EAC.
The EAC declined a request for comment, saying it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
