A U.S. federal appeals court on Saturday ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration cannot implement major parts of an executive order aimed at tightening mail-in voting procedures in 23 states, leaving in place a lower court’s injunction that found key elements of the directive to be unconstitutional.
The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the administration’s request to suspend an injunction issued on 25 June by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani. The injunction had been secured by a coalition of Democratic-led states challenging the legality of the Republican president’s executive order, which seeks to introduce new federal requirements governing aspects of mail-in voting ahead of the September and November elections that will determine control of Congress.
In seeking to overturn Talwani’s ruling while pursuing a broader appeal, the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the legal challenge had been brought too early because federal agencies had not yet finalised the policies and actions needed to implement the executive order. According to the department, any judicial review should await concrete implementation measures.
The appeals court, however, rejected that argument in a 2-1 decision, concluding that the order imposed imminent obligations on the states that required an immediate response.
“As the district court reasoned, the (executive order) lays out a clear set of rapidly approaching deadlines by which states must coordinate with federal officials and comply with new voting procedures — all while the states must also ensure that their officials and the public understand the evolving set of rules that would govern the upcoming September and November elections,” the judges wrote. “The Plaintiff States have no practical choice but to respond to the (order) now.”
The ruling represents a significant procedural setback for the administration’s efforts to reshape election administration through executive action. Before Talwani’s decision, however, a federal judge in Washington had rejected a separate Democratic attempt to block the executive order on similar procedural grounds.
The Justice Department has indicated that, unless the appeals court grants relief, it may ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
Trump signed the executive order in March after years of advocating stricter controls on voting by mail and continuing to assert the false claim that his defeat in the 2020 presidential election resulted from widespread voter fraud. Under the U.S. Constitution, responsibility for administering federal elections rests with the states.
The executive order forms part of a broader effort by Trump to overhaul election procedures. Alongside the order, the administration has prioritised congressional approval of the SAVE America Act, a package of proposed voting restrictions. Courts have also blocked an earlier executive order requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration and restricting the counting of mail ballots.
Among its provisions, the March order directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to compile and provide each state with lists of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote using citizenship, naturalisation and other federal records. It also instructed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters included on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. USPS subsequently proposed new rules requiring states to provide names and barcodes associated with mail-in ballots.
The order further instructed the U.S. Department of Justice to prioritise investigations and prosecutions of state and local election officials who issue federal ballots to individuals considered “not eligible” to vote.
In granting the injunction, Talwani sided with a coalition of 23 states and the District of Columbia led by California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington state. The judge ruled that the president lacked the authority to direct the Department of Homeland Security to compile voter eligibility lists for state use and that the U.S. Postal Service had no statutory authority to issue binding regulations governing mail-in voting.
Talwani, who was appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama, also concluded that Trump could not use the executive order “to intimidate local election officials to use the necessarily incomplete confirmed citizenship lists as a resource, lest they face criminal prosecution.”
