Judge stops Trump admin from requiring proof of citizenship to vote

In a 120-page decision, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington sided with Democrats and voting rights groups in ruling that the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to regulate federal elections. She also blocked part of Trump’s executive order that requires public assistance enrollees to have their citizenship examined before they get access to the federal voter registration form.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly did, however, deny other requests from the Democrat plaintiffs, including their request to block a portion of the executive order that requires mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day, and kept in place Trump’s order to allow the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to certain databases to review state voter lists for illegal immigrants.

"And on the merits, the plaintiffs are substantially likely to prevail: Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States—not the President—with the authority to regulate federal elections. Consistent with that allocation of power, Congress is currently debating legislation that would effect many of the changes the President purports to order," Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote. "And no statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order."

The plaintiffs, she wrote, had shown that the implementation of portions of the executive order "would cause them irreparable harm and would not be in the public interest. As a result, they are entitled to a preliminary injunction against that implementation."

She wrote that the Trump administration has "offered almost no defense of the President’s order on the merits. Instead, they argue that these suits have been brought by the wrong plaintiffs at the wrong time."

In denying the plaintiffs’ requests for relief relating to the DOGE and mail-in ballot portions of the executive order, she wrote, "on the present record, challenges to those provisions are premature or properly presented not by these plaintiffs but by the States themselves. In fact, many States are already bringing those challenges elsewhere."