A U.S. federal appeals court has refused to allow President Donald Trump’s administration to enforce key parts of his executive order tightening mail-in voting rules in 23 states ahead of the November elections that will determine control of Congress.
In a ruling delivered on Saturday, the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined the administration’s request to suspend an injunction issued on June 25 by a lower court, which found significant portions of the order to be unconstitutional.
The U.S. Department of Justice had argued that legal challenges to the order were premature because federal agencies were still developing policies needed to implement the directive.
However, the appeals court, in a 2-1 decision, rejected that position, agreeing that states had no option but to begin preparing for the changes immediately.
“As the district court reasoned, the (executive order) lays out a clear set of rapidly approaching deadlines by which states must coordinate with federal officials and comply with new voting procedures — all while the states must also ensure that their officials and the public understand the evolving set of rules that would govern the upcoming September and November elections,” the judges wrote.
“The Plaintiff States have no practical choice but to respond to the (order) now.”
The Justice Department has indicated that it could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene if the ruling remains in place.
Trump signed the executive order in March after repeatedly calling for stricter controls on voting by mail and continuing to insist, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud influenced the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
The directive instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create and provide states with lists of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote using citizenship, naturalisation and other federal records.
It also required the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to deliver ballots only to voters listed on each state’s approved mail-in voting register. The postal service has since proposed rules requiring states to submit voter names and ballot barcodes for verification.
In addition, the order directed the Department of Justice to prioritise investigations and prosecutions involving state and local election officials accused of issuing federal ballots to individuals considered ineligible to vote.
The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of 23 states and the District of Columbia, led by California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington.
In June, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled that the president lacked the authority to require DHS to compile voter eligibility lists for states and that the USPS had no legal power to impose binding regulations governing mail-in voting.
Talwani also ruled that Trump could not use the executive order “to intimidate local election officials to use the necessarily incomplete confirmed citizenship lists as a resource, lest they face criminal prosecution.”
