Appeals Court Upholds Block on Trump Order to Tighten Mail-In Voting, Citizenship Verification

Part of Trump’s executive order directed Homeland Security to compile lists of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state.

Absentee ballots during a count at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee on Nov. 8, 2022. Morry Gash/AP Photo

President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at tightening mail-in voting rules in 23 states and the District of Columbia cannot be implemented, a federal appeals court ruled on July 25.

The 2–1 ruling upheld a lower judge’s decision that blocked the order, dealing a blow to Trump’s election integrity efforts ahead of the November midterms as Republicans seek to hold on to slim majorities in both chambers of Congress.

“The undisputed summary judgment record indicates that, were the [executive order] to take effect for the elections taking place in September and November, it would sow confusion and threaten disenfranchisement of many eligible voters,” the majority of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said in the decision.

On March 31, Trump signed the executive order Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections, aimed at putting additional security measures on voting via the U.S. Postal Service.

Part of the order directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state.

It also required the U.S. Postal Service to send ballots only to eligible American voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. The Department of Justice was authorized to investigate and prosecute state or local officials who gave ballots to individuals deemed ineligible to vote.

In protest, 23 Democrat-led states and Washington sued to block the directive, claiming that they would suffer injuries such as planning costs, compliance costs, and threat of prosecution if the order were allowed to be implemented.

This coalition on June 25 won an injunction placed on Trump’s order by Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, who said parts of it were unconstitutional.

Department of Justice lawyers requested the federal appeals court to pause Talwani’s ruling as it pursued an appeal, arguing that federal agencies had yet to finalize their actions and policies for Trump’s order, making any lawsuit challenging them premature.

The appeals court rejected that argument.

“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 judges wrote that the suing states would have no choice but to act on Trump’s executive order now and that they are currently experiencing injury because the directive disrupted ongoing efforts to administer multiple elections in the coming months.

Some of the plaintiff states had already begun pulling election staff from “critical projects” to begin adopting compliance with the order, the appeals court ruled.

“Both for legal and practical reasons, the Plaintiff States could not delay these planning and compliance efforts,” the judges wrote. “For example, in several of the Plaintiff States, statutes require officials to provide mail-in ballots to individuals eligible to vote by mail weeks in advance. These state statutory obligations were ‘undisputed’ by the Government.”

A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email that the agency disagrees with the appeals court’s ruling, and that the department is reviewing all options.

“The Department remains confident that President Trump’s order to secure federal elections will ultimately be upheld,” the spokesperson said.

The presidential order updating the vote-by-mail rules is part of a larger effort by Republicans to enact bolstered election integrity measures.

Trump has deemed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which includes a provision that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, a priority for Congress to advance to his desk. The House passed the legislation on July 22, attaching it to a defense policy bill.

The Senate has stalled in voting on the act.

Trump has frequently addressed the need to improve election security since his 2020 defeat, which he recently said was influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.

“Over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files,” Trump said during a primetime address on July 16.

Reuters contributed to this report.