

President Trump arrives Sunday at the U.S. Women's Open at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that President Trump's voting commission “was formed with the intent to discriminate against voters of color in violation of the Constitution.”

“Statements by President Trump, his spokespersons and surrogates . . . as well as the work of the Commission as described by its co-chairs, are grounded on the false premise that Black and Latino voters are more likely to perpetrate voter fraud,” the suit alleges.

As evidence, the suit points to Trump's repeated unsubstantiated claims that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 election. Those claims were subsequently repeated by Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, now the chair and vice-chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which Trump set up to investigate his unfounded claims.

The complaint also points to the “virulently racist rhetoric” of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a group associated with two of the commission's members, Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams. In May that group, headed by Adams, released a dubiously sourced report caricaturing noncitizens as invading space aliens, complete with cartoonish illustrations of UFOs.

The lawsuit alleges that the commission is designed “to reaffirm President Trump’s false allegations of millions of 'illegal' votes, and to provide a basis for actions that will target African-American and Latino voters, rather than objectively analyze an issue of national significance.” The group is asking the federal court to order the commission to cease all activities.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund complaint is at least the seventh federal lawsuit filed against the voting commission this month. The other lawsuits:

In addition, several separate challenges have been filed by groups at the state level, in Indiana, New Hampshire and Idaho.

Representatives for the commission did not immediately return a request for comment.

The commission is scheduled to hold its first in-person meeting Wednesday.