{"id":45304,"date":"2026-06-25T19:04:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T19:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/45304\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T19:04:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T19:04:38","slug":"judge-halts-trumps-order-to-create-federal-voter-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/45304\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge halts Trump\u2019s order to create federal voter list"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge on Thursday halted President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order<\/a> that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, sided with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the Republican president\u2019s order in granting a summary judgment. Her ruling applies to this year\u2019s midterm election cycle.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits<\/a>, both filed in federal court in Boston, that Trump\u2019s order should be found unconstitutional<\/a> because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. The judge agreed, saying in her ruling that the provisions of Trump\u2019s order seeking to create a federal list of eligible voters and using the U.S. Postal Service to determine who can receive a mail ballot are \u201clegally void\u201d because they \u201cunconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the second ruling in as many days against executive orders Trump has signed seeking oversight of the nation\u2019s elections. A separate ruling Wednesday<\/a> prohibited an executive order he had signed last year that would have required people to show documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote.<\/p>\n

Order targeted mail voting, administration likely to appeal<\/p>\n

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose state was among the plaintiffs, celebrated the court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of independents, Republicans and Democrats across Arizona have voted by mail for decades,\u201d she said in a statement, noting that nearly 80% of ballots in the state are cast by that method.<\/p>\n

Mayes, a Democrat, singled out military families, voters in the state\u2019s rural expanses and Native Americans who cast ballots from tribal lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump\u2019s executive order targeted all of these voters,\u201d she said. \u201cBut today, the courts affirmed what the Constitution makes clear: States run their elections, not the President.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House stood by Trump\u2019s executive order and indicated the administration would appeal the ruling. The order, said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, \u201clawfully protects our elections, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in its implementation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration, in its motions to dismiss the lawsuits challenging the order, argued that the motions were premature and that plaintiffs lacked the legal basis to bring their claim based on the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.<\/p>\n

But in an interim order before Thursday\u2019s ruling, Talwani said the motions pertaining to this year\u2019s election cycle were relevant: \u201cIn light of the EO\u2019s specific deadlines over the next three months, and the reality that elections will be occurring throughout this period with the November 3, 2026 midterm occurring in just five months, postponing judicial review is impracticable and may inflict significant hardship on Plaintiffs,\u201d she wrote. That order denied the Trump administration\u2019s motion to dismiss the challenges.<\/p>\n

Executive order sought to give Postal Service a central role in elections<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s executive order, the second one aimed at elections<\/a> during his second term, comes as he continues to raise the specter of widespread voting by noncitizens as a reason to change election rules. But states already have detailed processes aimed at keeping their voter rolls accurate, and voting by noncitizens has been shown to be rare<\/a>. It also is a felony<\/a> that can be punishable by deportation.<\/p>\n

Trump issued his second order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress<\/a>. The order would have had the federal government \u2014 through the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration \u2014 create a \u201cstate citizenship list\u201d of eligible voters. It then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list.<\/p>\n

Election officials argued that it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.<\/p>\n

The Postal Service has published a proposed rule<\/a> required by Trump\u2019s executive order in the Federal Register. Among other things, the rule would not apply to primary elections or overseas ballots.<\/p>\n

Postal Service workers have pushed back against the order, saying they are not equipped to determine who is eligible to vote in each state. After Trump issued his order last spring, the National Rural Letter Carriers\u2019 Association said forcing its members into such a role<\/a> \u201crisks politicizing one of the nation\u2019s most trusted public institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat whose state was among the plaintiffs, said the executive order illustrated how Trump was attempting to \u201cabuse power in previously unthinkable ways\u201d to interfere in elections.<\/p>\n

She said it \u201cstrains credulity\u201d to think the U.S. Postal Service could set up a workable system for pre-screening individual voters to determine whether they would be allowed to vote by mail, adding that it would be \u201ca shocking violation of American constitutional rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Postal Service did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s second election executive order faces multiple legal challenges<\/p>\n

The lawsuit seeking summary judgment was filed by Democratic attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia. Also signing on were attorneys representing Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, which has a Republican attorney general.<\/p>\n

The states also told the court that the move imposes a costly burden on election officials to comply and would spread fear about the possibility of prosecution. Stephen Pezzi, a lawyer for the Trump administration, had argued that no one would be prosecuted for violating the order.<\/p>\n

The other lawsuit filed in Talwani\u2019s court was by the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups, which have sought a preliminary injunction against the executive order.<\/p>\n

In yet another lawsuit filed against the executive order, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in May agreed with the Trump administration<\/a> that it was too early to block the order because it had yet to be implemented. That lawsuit was brought by Democratic and civil rights groups, which have appealed.<\/p>\n

Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden<\/a>, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation<\/a> into that year\u2019s vote, even though repeated audits and investigations<\/a>, including ones run by Republicans<\/a>, found it was free of widespread fraud<\/a>. Trump also has said he wants to \u201ctake over\u201d election administration in Democratic areas.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Barrow reported from Atlanta and Hanna from Topeka, Kansas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge on Thursday halted President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order that sought to create…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[362,8386,61,51,105,1283,56,1790,38,286,7398,50,8,25495,478,8257,1562,169,1784,9,67,8344,25496,7,363,54,365,100,760,69],"class_list":["post-45304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-2026-elections","tag-abigail-jackson","tag-ap-top-news","tag-arizona","tag-barack-obama","tag-boston","tag-courts","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-executive-orders","tag-general-news","tag-headlines","tag-indira-talwani","tag-joe-biden","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-kris-mayes","tag-lawsuits","tag-massachusetts","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-shenna-bellows","tag-stephen-pezzi","tag-top-stories","tag-u-s-democratic-party","tag-u-s-news","tag-u-s-republican-party","tag-united-states-government","tag-voting","tag-washington-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116812307730518217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}