A federal judge in Boston on Thursday dealt a significant blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to tighten mail-in voting rules, halting the enforcement of his executive order just months before November’s pivotal congressional elections. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled in favor of a coalition of Democratic-led states, which had argued that the Republican president was unlawfully meddling in their authority to run federal elections.
Trump signed the order on March 31, following years of unsubstantiated claims that his 2020 election loss was due to widespread voter fraud. The order, which critics say oversteps constitutional boundaries, directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote, drawing from citizenship records and federal databases. It also mandates that the U.S. Postal Service deliver ballots only to voters on state-approved mail-in lists, and instructs the Justice Department to prioritize prosecutions of election officials who issue ballots to ineligible individuals.
The states, backed by voting rights groups and 23 states plus the District of Columbia, argued that implementing the order would force them to hastily overhaul their election systems, risking chaos and disenfranchising eligible voters. Talwani, an Obama appointee, agreed, blocking the order from taking effect. Her ruling contrasts with a separate decision by Trump-appointed Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, D.C., who declined to issue a preliminary injunction, calling the challenge premature. The plaintiffs in that case are appealing.
