Judge blocks key parts of Trump mail voting order

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday blocked central parts of President Donald Trump’s March executive order on elections, ruling that the president exceeded his authority by directing the creation of federal voter citizenship lists and tying mail ballot delivery to state compliance.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of President Barack Obama, issued the injunction for a group of states challenging the order. The states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, along with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in his official capacity.

The order had called for the U.S. Postal Service to play a role in determining who could receive mail-in ballots. Under a Postal Service proposal responding to the order, USPS would use information from state election officials to create lists of approved absentee voters. Postmaster General David Steiner told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday that, under the proposed regulation, the Postal Service would not deliver absentee ballots in states that refused to turn over absentee voter lists to the federal government.

“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner said when Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan asked whether the Postal Service would still mail ballots if a state declined to provide its absentee voter list.

Peters said there was no constitutional or federal statutory basis for USPS to create such systems. “There’s nowhere in the Constitution — there’s no federal law that the Postal Service is authorized to create these types of voter databases, ballot verification systems or mandatory standards,” he said. “It just simply doesn’t exist.”

Steiner said he would defer to the courts on the question of legal authority.

Talwani ruled that the administration could not require the states to participate in the creation of what the order described as “Confirmed Citizen Lists.”

“Congress, consistent with the Constitution, has left that authority to the States alone,” Talwani wrote. “Accordingly, the creation of the Confirmed Citizen Lists is ultra vires because the President lacks any authority to compile voter lists for each State.”

“The Constitution reserves the power to determine voter eligibility to the States alone,” she added. “Neither the Executive Branch nor Congress may interfere with this power.”

The Trump administration had argued that the states lacked standing to challenge the order because it had not yet been implemented. A Trump-appointed federal judge in Washington, D.C., accepted that argument in a late May ruling, according to Talking Points Memo. Talwani rejected it, saying the order already forced states to respond as they prepare elections.

“Plaintiff States are actively working to conduct primary, special, and general elections,” she wrote. “The EO has ordered administrative agencies to take action in the coming months that has already required Plaintiff States to respond given the practical nature of an election cycle.”

A group of Republican-led states intervened in the case on the Trump administration’s side.

The order faces five lawsuits, NPR reported, including challenges by Democrats, nearly two dozen states and voting rights groups. The challengers argue that the Constitution gives power to state legislatures and Congress, not the president, to set federal election rules. NPR reported that the order has not directly affected mail-in voting for this year’s primaries.

Trump has said he issued the order to stop illegal voting by non-U.S. citizens in federal elections. NPR reported that many reviews have found such voting to be incredibly rare. Trump himself voted by mail in Florida in March, NPR reported.

The executive order has been challenged in multiple federal courts, and most of it has been blocked for now, according to Talking Points Memo.