President Donald Trump’s latest attack on mail-in voting fell apart in court this week.
On June 25, a federal judge blocked the U.S. Postal Service from withholding mail-in ballots in states that refuse to give the federal government a list of their voters. The decision struck a major blow to Trump’s plan to seize more federal control over state-run elections.
In March, Trump issued an executive order directing the Postal Service to restrict who receives ballots through the mail. The order was a sharp escalation in the administration’s efforts to flex federal power to influence elections, which are conducted by the states. Trump previously pledged to “get rid of mail-in ballots,” which he has linked to false claims of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued an injunction Thursday blocking the Trump administration’s plan to make a list of verified voters that are greenlit by the federal government to receive mail-in ballots. Talwani wrote that the Constitution “reserves the power to determine voter eligibility to the States alone,” adding that Congress and the executive branch don’t have the authority to interfere.
A group of 23 states sued the Trump administration over the executive order and ultimately prevailed in Thursday’s ruling. While the coalition of states notched a win ahead of November’s critical midterm elections, the Trump administration is likely to mount a legal challenge to the unfavorable ruling.
“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Talwani, an Obama appointee, wrote.
Trump targets mail-in voting
Unsurprisingly, Trump doesn’t see it the same way. “States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” the president claimed on Truth Social last year.
Trump has long railed against mail-in voting, which is widely regarded by elections experts as a safe, accessible way to vote. In Oregon, which switched to universal vote-by-mail more than 20 years ago, only a dozen cases of confirmed fraud were documented across two decades.
Universal vote-by-mail is common in Western states that reliably elect Democrats, including California, Oregon, and Washington. Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., also use a mail-in voting system, automatically sending all eligible voters in the state a ballot through the mail.
In a Senate hearing on June 24, David Steiner, the postmaster general, confirmed that the Postal Service planned to withhold mail-in ballots in states that fail to comply with Trump’s executive order, though he admitted that ultimately the courts would have the last word.