Voting Rights Groups Sue Over Trump's Mail-in Ballot Executive Order
Voting rights groups and Democrats filed lawsuits challenging Trump's March 31 mail-in ballot executive order as unconstitutional overreach.
Objective Facts
Democrats and a coalition of voter rights groups filed separate lawsuits Wednesday and Thursday in an effort to block an executive order that President Donald Trump signed Tuesday that would limit mail ballots. A coalition of voting rights organizations filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging President Trump's March 31 executive order concerning mail-in voting. The executive order directs federal agencies to compile lists of U.S. citizens and transmit them to states before every election, directs the U.S. Postal Service to create a list of "approved" mail voters, and instructs USPS to refuse to deliver ballots from voters not on that federally created list. The groups are being represented by attorney Marc Elias, and are asking for the executive order to be struck down on First, Fifth and Tenth Amendment grounds. The complaint also alleges a violation of the separation of powers, plus violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, the Voting Rights Act and other federal laws.
Left-Leaning Perspective
Left-leaning outlets and voting rights groups emphasized constitutional concerns and potential voter disenfranchisement. The Brennan Center for Justice and ACLU characterized the order as "an illegal and dangerous attempt" to "eliminate accessible voting options and subvert our democracy" through "attempts to end voting by mail" that are "part of the Trump administration's larger strategy to undermine elections," asserting that "the states and Congress — not the president — set the rules for our elections." Democrats compared Trump's latest attempt to overhaul elections to George Orwell's "1984." Critics argued that the order "requires the Department of Homeland Security to build and give to each state a list of citizens eligible to vote" and that "given that federal databases are out-of-date and unreliable, this risks mass disenfranchisement of eligible voters." Challengers noted that the order "requires that states seeking to use USPS to deliver ballots submit lists of their mail voters 60 days before an election," a process that "would leave out people who move or become naturalized citizens within 60 days of an election." Legal observers pointed out that "Trump's prior executive order on voting failed in court for the same reason" and that "President Trump tried to make an end-run around the Constitution with another executive order last year and was promptly rebuffed by multiple courts." The left's broader narrative emphasizes constitutional structure: states and Congress—not the president—control elections. Critics omit discussion of specific voter verification concerns, instead framing all mail voting as secure and reliable.
Right-Leaning Perspective
Right-leaning perspectives and administration officials frame the order as a reasonable election security measure. The White House fact sheet states that Trump "signed an Executive Order to strengthen election integrity by ordering citizenship verification for Federal elections and modernizing and securing mail-in and absentee ballot procedures through the United States Postal Service (USPS)," and the order "directs the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Social Security Administration, to compile and transmit to each State a State Citizenship List of confirmed U.S. citizens." Supporters at the Michigan Fair Elections Institute argue the order addresses "the absence of a systematic mechanism to verify that only citizens receive ballots, and the lack of a uniform, auditable framework governing mail-in and absentee ballot delivery through the U.S. Postal Service," noting that "this executive order, whatever its ultimate fate in the courts, addresses concerns that serious election reformers across the political spectrum have flagged for more than two decades." Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick framed the order as focused on "voter integrity and Mail-In ballots" and "stopping the massive cheating that's gone on," with the order directing "federal agencies to work with states to compile lists of eligible voters using federal citizenship and identity data, while also instructing the U.S. Postal Service to develop new safeguards for mail-in ballots, including barcode tracking and verification measures." Proponents cite a bipartisan 2005 Carter-Baker Commission report finding that "Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud" and warning that citizens voting by mail "are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation" and that "vote buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail." The right omits discussion of federal database reliability issues or implementation challenges before the November election, focusing instead on constitutional authority claims and fraud prevention rationales.
Deep Dive
Trump's March 31 executive order represents his second attempt to reshape federal elections through executive action after his 2025 order was largely blocked by courts. A previous executive order on elections signed about a year ago has been blocked by federal judges who said the president lacked the constitutional authority to set voting policy, with parts of that earlier order blocked including the directive to withhold federal election funds to states that would not change their voting procedures to meet the President's demands. The new order creates federal citizenship lists and directs USPS to restrict mail ballot delivery, ostensibly addressing concerns about noncitizen voting and mail ballot security. Both sides hold legitimate concerns that the other largely ignores. The left correctly identifies that the Constitution vests election authority in states and Congress, not the president—a principle federal courts have repeatedly affirmed. The right accurately notes that federal databases could theoretically assist with citizenship verification, a goal no one disputes is legitimate. However, the left omits substantive discussion of whether some verification mechanism might be appropriate, while the right minimizes genuine practical obstacles: election officials have pushed back on the practicality of a federal voter list, arguing statewide databases are regularly updated each day as voters move, turn 18 years old, become naturalized citizens, or die — meaning a national list would become outdated just as soon as it's created. Ruth Greenwood, an election law expert at Harvard Law School, noted that "the United States does not have a national voter list, or the infrastructure to make one." The implementation timeline is also unrealistic: the order sets a 60-day deadline for USPS rulemaking and a 90-day deadline for DHS to establish the infrastructure, and both timelines are aggressive, with election law experts across the spectrum questioning whether these systems can be fully operational before November 2026. What emerges is a conflict between presidential ambition and constitutional structure, overlaid with genuine disagreements about election security priorities. Courts will likely focus on the constitutional separation of powers issue, potentially creating the same outcome as the 2025 order. Even if the new order is defeated, experts say the move risks sowing confusion and distrust among voters. The underlying question—whether and how to verify voter citizenship—remains unresolved legislatively; two bills that would require documented proof of citizenship to register to vote, the SAVE Act and the SAVE America Act, have passed the House but stalled in the Senate, where the filibuster rule effectively means legislation needs 60 votes to pass, and the president has repeatedly called on Republican senators to eliminate the filibuster and pass the legislation, but they've so far been reluctant to do so.