Rights groups have raised concerns about Trump’s efforts to change election administration before November’s midterms.

About two dozen Democrat-led states have filed a lawsuit against the administration of United States President Donald Trump to block an executive order setting new limits on mail-in ballots.

Friday’s lawsuit comes as voting rights groups charge that Trump is seeking to make it more difficult to vote before the consequential midterm elections in November.

Trump, meanwhile, has argued that his efforts are meant to counter rampant voter fraud in US elections.

That opinion runs counter to the findings of independent election monitors, including the conservative Heritage Foundation, whose decades-spanning database has found an exceedingly low rate of election fraud.

New ‌York Attorney General Letitia James was among the attorneys general in 23 states and the District of Columbia who filed Friday’s suit, alongside the governor of Pennsylvania.

In a statement, she argued that Trump’s executive order exceeded his presidential power.

“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and no president has the power to rewrite the rules on his own,” James said.

Trump’s latest executive order, signed on Tuesday, calls on the Department of Homeland Security to “compile and transmit” a list of United States citizens who are eligible to vote in each state.

It then requires the United States Postal Service (USPS) to “transmit ballots only to individuals enrolled on a State-specific Mail-in and Absentee Participation List, ensuring that only eligible absentee or mail-in voters receive absentee or mail-in ballots”.