'No specific power for President over election': Federal judge blocks Trump's executive order on voting laws; says it oversteps presidential powers

Time of India

15 hours ago

A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump's controversial executive order aimed at reshaping US election procedures, ruling that it likely violates the Constitution and infringes on states' authority over elections.
US District Judge Denise J. Casper in Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction against the March 25 directive, siding with a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general who argued that the order was an unconstitutional attempt to override state election laws.
'The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,' Judge Casper wrote in her ruling.
Trump's order sought to enforce several sweeping changes to federal elections, including mandating documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration, rejecting mail-in ballots not received by Election Day, and linking federal election grants to states' compliance with the new rules.
The states challenging the order said it 'usurps the States' constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.' The Biden administration, which inherited the litigation, did not support Trump's order. However, Trump and his allies have maintained the directive is necessary to secure elections, with the White House at the time defending it as 'standing up for free, fair and honest elections.'
Casper said the states had shown a 'likelihood of success' in their legal challenges and acknowledged their concerns about the administrative and financial burden the order would impose.
She also noted that federal registration forms already require voters to affirm their US citizenship and that noncitizen voting is already illegal under federal law.
This marks the second judicial blow to Trump's order. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., had earlier blocked parts of the directive, including the proof-of-citizenship mandate.
The order was rooted in Trump's long-standing claims of voter fraud — assertions that have repeatedly been debunked by independent reviews and multiple state-led investigations.
After losing the 2020 election, Trump has continued to promote baseless allegations about election integrity, including false claims about voting machines and illegal ballots.
Critics argue the executive order threatens to disenfranchise voters, particularly in states like Oregon and Washington that rely heavily on mail-in voting. In a separate legal challenge, these states pointed out that the order would bar the counting of hundreds of thousands of ballots postmarked on time but received after Election Day.
In Washington alone, more than 300,000 such ballots arrived late in 2024.
Trump's order had found support among Republican election officials in some states, who said it could help prevent voter fraud and provide access to federal data for purging outdated voter rolls. But constitutional experts have warned that the president lacks the authority to impose such nationwide election rules — a power reserved for states, with Congress able to intervene only in federal elections.
During a court hearing earlier this month, Department of Justice attorney Bridget O'Hickey argued the order aimed to create consistent standards across states and dismissed concerns about cost or feasibility as speculative. She also suggested that late-arriving ballots might be tampered with, although Judge Casper noted that such ballots already require a postmark before or on Election Day, and any received afterward with later postmarks are not counted.
Friday's ruling leaves the future of Trump's order uncertain and bolsters state officials' efforts to maintain control over their own election procedures.