In a significant development on Saturday, a federal appellate court thwarted the Trump administration’s attempt to enforce more stringent mail-in voting regulations just ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, where the balance of power in both the House and Senate hangs in the balance.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals chose not to overturn a prior injunction issued in June by a lower court, which declared several elements of President Trump’s directive unconstitutional. This legal decision followed lawsuits filed by several Democratic-led states, such as California, Massachusetts, and Washington, challenging the administration’s measures.
The appellate court, in a close 2-1 decision, dismissed the administration’s appeal, marking a setback for Trump’s electoral policy plans.
Trump’s contested directive had tasked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with compiling a registry of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state, utilizing sensitive data drawn from federal databases. Furthermore, the order instructed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to scrutinize officials who dispatched ballots to individuals deemed “not eligible” to vote.
In her judgment, Judge Talwani emphasized that Trump had overstepped his bounds by directing the DHS to assemble such a list and that the U.S. Postal Service lacked the authority to carry out these directives concerning mail-in voting. She pointedly noted that Trump had no influence “to coerce local election officials into using inherently incomplete citizenship lists as a guide, under the threat of criminal prosecution.”
Trump has remained critical of mail-in ballots and in his July primetime address on election integrity said there were “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure. This evidence shows that the election system we have dangerously exposes, and really exposes like levels never thought possible, the hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.”
He also mentioned in the same speech that how long it took California to count mail-in ballots was “one example of insanity” caused by mail-in voting.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has said that absent any ruling in its favor the administration may ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.