A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) that sought to establish a federal voter list and place new restrictions on mail-in ballots.
Trump's Executive Order "Legally Void"
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani declared that procedures ordered within EO 14399, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections”, are “legally void.”
Siding with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged President Trump’s directive, Judge Talwani agreed that the order is unconstitutional, as states and Congress have the power to set election rules, not the president.
Judge Talwani’s ruling strikes down the U.S. Postal Service’s recently proposed amendment to the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM).
USPS's Amended Mail-in Ballot Policy
Postmaster General David Steiner told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee a day prior that the new proposal would require states to provide the names, addresses, and “unique ballot envelope identifiers” of individuals seeking to obtain a mail-in ballot or face rejection.
Judge Talwani States EO Will Be Used As Threatening Enforcement Mechanism
“It is clear that the federal agencies charged with compiling Confirmed Citizen Lists lack the ability to create complete and accurate lists of the U.S. citizens residing in every State,” Judge Talwani said.
Judge Talwani affirmed that the lists the Trump administration seeks to procure through the order would, “at minimum,” be utilized “as a threatened enforcement mechanism that will chill local election officials from complying with legal obligations to ensure that all eligible citizens may vote.”
Judge Talwani stated that these actions are beyond the president’s constitutional authority.
President Trump's Efforts Thwarted Across Branches
President Trump’s attempts to nationalize elections continue to be thwarted across the separate branches of the U.S. government.
In a recent decision, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan additionally ruled against the administration’s “overhaul” of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.
The “overhaul” attempted to integrate the Social Security Administration (SSA) and passport databases into the program so that state and local election officials could use it to verify a voter applicant’s citizenship or immigration status.
President Trump also recently obstructed the signing ceremony for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a generational bipartisan housing bill, in an effort to force the U.S. Senate to vote on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE America Act).
