President Trump's executive order to limit voting by mail has encountered a significant legal obstacle. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked parts of the order, which has not yet directly affected mail-in voting for this year's midterm primary elections.
The legal challenge centers on fundamental questions of presidential authority under the Constitution, which grants state legislatures and Congress — not the U.S. president — the power to establish rules for federal elections. Judge Talwani, a nominee of former President Barack Obama, issued the ruling from Boston as the Trump administration faces multiple legal challenges to the March executive order.
The Trump administration is expected to appeal the new ruling. A separate appeal of an earlier ruling by another federal judge is already moving forward in a similar set of lawsuits based in Washington, D.C.
The executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service to create lists of adult U.S. citizens or eligible voters in each state. It further instructs USPS, which operates independently of the president's administration, to deliver mail-in ballots only to people on those lists.
In response to the order, USPS has proposed using information from state election officials to create voter lists. Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers Wednesday that under the proposal, the Postal Service would not deliver the mail ballots of any states that refuse to turn over their absentee voter lists to the federal government.
This development represents a potential standoff between federal authority and state control over election administration. The directive places states in the position of choosing whether to comply with federal demands for voter information or risk having their residents' mail ballots undelivered by the Postal Service.
In the D.C.-based cases, the judge found in late May that it was too early for an emergency ruling that would block directives that the Trump administration has yet to carry out. Democrats are appealing that judge's ruling to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.
The legal battles over the executive order continue to unfold across multiple jurisdictions, with Thursday's Boston ruling representing the first successful challenge to block portions of the order. The outcome of these cases will determine whether the federal government can impose new restrictions on mail-in voting procedures that have traditionally been controlled by state governments.
