US appeals court blocks Trump mail-in voting changes
Donald Trump had issued an executive order to tighten voting rules, but an appeals court has stood by an earlier decision that key parts are unconstitutional
A federal appeals court has blocked Donald Trump’s changes to mail-in voting, upholding an earlier ruling that key parts of his executive order were unconstitutional.
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On Saturday, the Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to allow the president to implement his order in several states ahead of the November midterm elections.
The administration had appealed the outcome of a legal challenge launched by 23 Democratic-run states where a lower-court judge had ruled that key parts of the Republican president’s order were unconstitutional
But in a 2–1 decision, the appeals court rejected the administration's attempt to overturn the judgement, meaning Donald Trump will not be able to implement any changes before the midterms.
Trump signed the executive order in March after years of calling for tighter rules on postal voting and pushing the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud.
The order was part of a wider push by Trump to tighten voting rules ahead of the November midterm elections, and came alongside other efforts to overhaul how elections are run in the US.
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He has also backed a controversial package of voting restrictions in Congress known as the SAVE America Act, which would require additional documentation to prove citizenship before people can vote. Roughly half of the US population don't own passports, so the restrictions may make it much harder and slower to register to vote.
Under the US Constitution, individual states are responsible for administering federal elections, a key issue at the centre of the legal fight.
The executive order directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile and send states a list of confirmed US citizens eligible to vote, using citizenship and naturalisation records as well as other federal databases.
The order also told the Department of Justice to prioritise the investigation and prosecution of state and local election officials who issue federal ballots to people deemed ineligible to vote.
Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state of Arizona, called the executive order "a disgusting overreach," but Donald Trump said is about “preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections.”
It also required the US Postal Service to only deliver ballots to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list which would mean states could be forced to share more voter and ballot data before mail-in votes are delivered, also potentially making postal voting harder and less efficient for some voters.
But US District Judge Indira Talwani, who first ruled against the order in June, sided with a coalition of 23 Democrat-led states, saying the president lacked any authority to direct DHS to compile voter eligibility lists for each state to use.
She also ruled that the Postal Service had no authority to adopt binding regulations on mail-in voting, and said Trump could not use his order to intimidate local election officials with "criminal prosecution" into relying on incomplete citizenship lists.
The rejection of the administration's appeal of these decisions is the latest legal setback for Trump’s push to reshape US election rules ahead of the midterms. The administration could still seek further appeal.