A federal judge in Boston handed the Trump administration back-to-back courtroom defeats this week, blocking two pillars of a presidential executive order that sought to reshape how Americans register to vote and cast mail-in ballots. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, appointed to the bench by President Obama, issued the injunction Thursday after 23 states and Washington, D.C., joined forces to challenge the order in court.
The ruling targets a pair of provisions stemming from an executive order Trump signed in March. One directed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pull data from the Social Security Administration and construct, state by state, a federal roster of citizens deemed eligible to vote. The second would have compelled the U.S. Postal Service to deliver absentee ballots only to individuals whose names appeared on those federally compiled lists.
Talwani's 37-page opinion left little doubt about her conclusions. "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," she wrote. She went further, finding that "both Congress and the president lack any role regarding voter eligibility," and that "in no federal statute does Congress authorize the federal government to create their own voting database." The Constitution, she noted, means Congress "has left that authority to the states alone" — and the president "lacks any authority to compile voter lists for each state."
Beyond the list-building itself, the executive order had directed the attorney general to prioritize prosecuting state and local election officials who disregarded the federally approved roster. Talwani concluded that such a list would operate as "an enforcement mechanism that has some type of legal consequence, or at minimum, as a threatened enforcement mechanism that will chill local election officials from complying with legal obligations to ensure that all eligible citizens may vote" — an effort, she determined, to "intimidate local election officials."
On absentee voting, Talwani found that "no law enacted by Congress delegates authority to control mail-in voting to the Postal Service," and that "the EO's directive that USPS require all States to use a specific mail-in ballot is inconsistent with USPS rulemaking procedure." Her order prohibits the administration from taking any action to implement either of the two blocked provisions.
The decision landed just a day after Postmaster General David Steiner told a Senate Homeland Security hearing that, under a rule the Postal Service was proposing, mail-in ballot delivery would be withheld in any state that failed to submit an approved-voter list to the Trump administration. CBS News indicated it sought responses from both the White House and the Justice Department, though neither provided comment for the source account.
Thursday's loss was the second in as many days for the administration on election-related litigation. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper — also an Obama appointee — struck down central elements of a separate Trump executive order from earlier in his second term, including a requirement that voters prove citizenship at the point of registration. Casper declared that order "unconstitutional and void" for violating "the separation of powers under the United States Constitution."
Casper's decision bars federal agencies from enforcing the citizenship-documentation mandate, modifying federal voter registration forms, penalizing jurisdictions over ballots received after Election Day, or conditioning funding on compliance with those provisions — effectively preserving existing election rules and closing off any federal documentation standard for registration purposes.
The White House rejected both rulings. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson insisted the executive order was on solid legal footing and would eventually be implemented. "President Trump has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting to secure our elections for generations to come," Jackson said.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta praised the outcome but cautioned that the fight was far from over. "While we are proud of this result, we are clear-eyed that President Trump's attacks on voting rights and our elections show no signs of slowing down. So let me be clear: we will keep fighting back every step of the way," he said in a press release.
The administration has not lost every such challenge. A month ago, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, D.C. — a Trump appointee — rejected an attempt by the Democratic National Committee and allied groups to block the executive order, ruling the plaintiffs lacked standing and had failed to show irreparable harm. Nichols left the door open for a future challenge once implementing rules are finalized; the plaintiffs have since filed an appeal.
Informational content only, not legal advice. Consult a licensed immigration attorney.