In a ruling released Thursday, US District Judge Carl Nichols denied requests to block President Trump’s executive order placing restrictions on the guidelines for voting by mail. The decision, delivered by Trump-appointed Judge Nichols, acknowledges that the plaintiffs, seeking preliminary injunctive relief, may renew their claims in the future only if they can demonstrate that the order caused harm to eligible voters.
The executive order in question was issued in March 2026, and tests the boundaries of the president’s authority under the Constitution to influence federal elections. According to Nichols’ ruling, the purported intent behind the order’s creation is to “prevent violations of federal misconduct and maintain public confidence in election outcomes.”
Largely, the implications of the order fall on the United States Postal Service (USPS), which is being directed to generate lists of eligible voters in each state and deliver mail-in ballots only to those individuals. Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) are instructed to work together to compile lists of adult citizens who reside in each state for submission to state election officials.
These “State Citizenship Lists” will be generated using federal databases that have been created for purposes other than voting, such as SSA records, federal immigration and naturalization records, and the DHS SAVE program data. This has created skepticism that every adult citizen will truly be included on the list, due to the unreliability and sometimes incomplete nature of the federal data.
Plaintiffs, comprised of democrats, voting rights organizations, and numerous states, argued that, if implemented, this could disenfranchise vast amounts of otherwise eligible voters. They challenged the executive order because the ability to direct the postal service falls outside of the president’s scope of authority, and Article I of the Constitution gives only Congress and state legislators the authority to set rules for federal elections, not the president.
Judge Nichols denied their request to block the executive order largely on the grounds of ‘ripeness’ and standing, because the effects of the order have not been actualized yet, and plaintiffs failed to show that they will suffer “imminent and irreparable harm” absent the injunction.
However, he took care to emphasize that should such harm occur, the plaintiffs could refile their claim, stating:
The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals to to particularized flaws. Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.
This is the Trump administration’s second attempt at restricting the guidelines for voting in federal elections. In March 2025, an executive order was issued requiring individuals to provide a document indicating proof of citizenship at the polls, which has since been permanently blocked by a federal judge.
Nichols’ decision concludes only one lawsuit filed in federal court regarding the constitutionality of the executive order and sets the stage for the other Massachusetts-based suits to issue a ruling in the coming weeks.