Judge allows Trump to implement mail-in voting order
A US judge has refused to block President Donald Trump’s executive order tightening rules on voting by mail; This resulted in a loss for the Democratic Party, whose lawyers argued it could disenfranchise millions of voters.
Thursday’s decision comes as Trump’s Republicans are locked in a tight fight to keep control of both houses of the U.S. Congress in the November midterm elections.
For years, Trump has pushed the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud and has criticized voting by mail.
The executive order signed by Trump on March 31 instructed his administration to compile a list of certified U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and use federal data to help state election officials verify who is eligible to vote.
It also required the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state’s certified mail ballot list and required states to keep election-related records for five years.
In denying a request for a preliminary injunction from the plaintiffs, including New York Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Washington-based U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols wrote that Democrats had filed the lawsuit too early because the government had not yet created a flawed citizenship list and the Postal Service had not yet implemented any new rules.
“Given that the executive order does not order the plaintiffs to do anything, and no agency has yet acted pursuant to the Order in a way that would harm the plaintiffs, they are not currently suffering any harm,” wrote Nichols, who was appointed by Trump in his first term.
The judge said Democrats could seek a preliminary injunction again after federal agencies take steps to enforce the executive order.
Democrats had argued that the decision violated individual states’ rights to hold elections under the U.S. Constitution.
A coalition of Democratic states filed a similar lawsuit in federal court in Boston challenging the executive order.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama, will hear arguments in the case on June 2.
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