ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to overhaul elections in the U.S., siding with a group of Democratic state attorneys general who challenged the effort as unconstitutional.
Trump’s order, issued March 25, demanded states not count mail-in ballots received after Election Day — even those postmarked prior to the election — and requires proof of citizenship to register to vote. The order threatened to pull federal funding from states where election officials don’t comply.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and 18 other attorneys general — from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin — said the directive “usurps the States’ constitutional power and seeks to amend election law by fiat.”
In a statement Friday, Raoul said Trump’s order would lead to the “disenfranchisement of voters.”
“Nothing is more fundamental to the perseverance of our democracy than the right to vote,” Raoul said. “Today’s decision by the court acknowledges that Congress and individual states — not the president — has the authority to oversee the elections process.”
The White House defended the order as “standing up for free, fair and honest elections” and called proof of citizenship a “commonsense” requirement.
Judge Denise J. Casper of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts said in Friday’s order that the states had a likelihood of success as to their legal challenges. Casper also noted that when it comes to citizenship, “There is no dispute (nor could there be) that U.S. citizenship is required to vote in federal elections, and the federal voter registration forms require attestation of citizenship.”
“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Casper wrote.
Casper also cited arguments made by the states that the requirements would “burden the States with significant efforts and substantial costs” to update procedures.
The Illinois State Board of Elections, which said the order did not impact the April municipal elections, deferred comment to Raoul.
The ruling is the second legal setback for Trump’s election order. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., previously blocked parts of the directive, including the proof-of-citizenship requirement for the federal voter registration form.
Illinois has joined in on more than 20 legal challenges to Trump actions, including suits over triggers that can make semiautomatic rifles fire faster and cuts to public health and medical research funding, among others.
Raoul has become a key figure in the fight. Last month, he led 18 attorneys general in filing a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a legal challenge to two Trump orders targeting diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives, and led a coalition of 20 attorneys general in another suit accusing the Trump administration of attempting to “illegally” coerce states into sweeping immigration enforcement by threatening to withhold billions in federal funding for emergency services and infrastructure.
Friday’s order is the culmination of Trump’s long-standing complaints about elections. After his first win in 2016, Trump falsely claimed his popular vote total would have been much higher if not for “millions of people who voted illegally.”
Since 2020, Trump has made false claims of widespread voter fraud and manipulation of voting machines to explain his loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
He has said his executive order secures elections against illegal voting by noncitizens, though multiple studies and investigations in the states have shown that it’s rare and typically a mistake. Casting a ballot as a noncitizen is already against the law and can result in fines and deportation if convicted.
Oregon and Washington, which conduct their elections almost entirely by mail, filed a separate lawsuit over the ballot deadline, saying the executive order could disenfranchise voters in their states. When the lawsuit was filed, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs noted that more than 300,000 ballots in the state arrived after Election Day in 2024.
Justice Department lawyer Bridget O’Hickey said during the hearing that the order seeks to provide a single set of rules for certain aspects of election operations rather than having a patchwork of state laws and that any harm to the states is speculation.
O’Hickey also claimed that mailed ballots received after Election Day might somehow be manipulated, suggesting people could retrieve their ballots and alter their votes based on what they see in early results. But all ballots received after Election Day require a postmark showing they were sent on or before that date, and that any ballot with a postmark after Election Day would not count.
Contributing: Violet Miller