Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., declined Thursday to block President Donald Trump's March 2026 executive order giving the federal government sweeping new control over who can receive a mail-in ballot. Civil rights groups had asked Nichols to halt two core provisions of the order while the case moved through the courts. He refused, ruling the harms too speculative to act on, and the November midterms are five months away.
What the Executive Order Actually Does
Trump signed the order on March 31, commanding the Department of Homeland Security to compile a "state citizenship list" for every state, drawing on Social Security Administration records and the SAVE immigration database. States receive those lists. The U.S. Postal Service is then instructed to deliver absentee and mail-in ballots only to voters whose names appear on them.
The order also directs the Justice Department to investigate and criminally prosecute state and local election officials who send ballots to anyone the administration deems ineligible. That threat extends to mail carriers, vendors, and civic groups such as the NAACP and Common Cause whose volunteers help voters submit ballots. Neither the USPS nor the president holds any constitutional authority over state election rules. The Constitution assigns that power to state legislatures, with Congress as the only federal override.
Why the Databases Are Unreliable
The SAVE program was built to verify immigrants' eligibility for government benefits, not to maintain a comprehensive registry of U.S. citizens. In recent tests, DHS used the same database to flag potential noncitizens on state voter rolls and produced a high error rate, repeatedly misidentifying U.S. citizens as possibly ineligible. The Social Security database has similar gaps: it does not track current state residence, it excludes people who gained citizenship after certain data integrations, and it misses many Americans who have moved across state lines.
Any voter left off the list through a database error could find their ballot simply not delivered, with no notification. Roughly one-third of all ballots in the 2024 election were cast by mail. Eight states conduct elections almost entirely by post and report some of the country's strongest election-integrity metrics.
The Judge's Reasoning, and Its Limits
Nichols wrote that the Postal Service has not yet issued a rule restricting ballot delivery, and DHS has not yet finalized any state citizenship lists. Because no concrete harm has materialized, he found the request for an injunction premature and denied it.
"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." — Judge Carl Nichols, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, May 28, 2026
The challengers, including congressional Democratic leaders, national Democratic committees, NAACP, LULAC, and Common Cause, had argued that waiting for concrete harm to materialize before the election leaves no time to fix it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the order "voter suppression, plain and simple." A separate set of lawsuits is pending in federal court in Boston, where U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, is scheduled to hear arguments June 2.
What This Means for November
Trump issued a similar executive order in March 2025 requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and barring states from counting late-arriving mail ballots. Three federal judges blocked that order. The administration appealed. The 2026 order was structured to sidestep those blocks by targeting the delivery mechanism rather than voter registration itself.
The order also requires states to submit their absentee voter lists to USPS at least 90 days before a federal election. States that do not comply could find their residents' ballots undelivered wholesale. USPS, which is an independent agency with no legal authority over ballot design or delivery conditions, has not yet issued the rule the order demands.
Trump lost in 2020 in part because Democratic voters turned out in large numbers by mail. The March 2026 order is the most direct federal attempt yet to restrict that access before November. Three separate court challenges are now running in parallel: the consolidated D.C. cases before Nichols, the Boston cases before Talwani with a June 2 hearing, and the pending appeals on the 2025 order. Civil rights groups made clear Thursday they will return to court the moment USPS finalizes its rule.
Sources
- Al Jazeera: US judge rejects immediate block on Trump's mail-in voting executive order
- Roll Call: Judge declines to block parts of Trump mail voting order, for now
- Brennan Center for Justice: Analyzing the President's Executive Order on Mail Voting
- NPR: A federal judge in D.C. declines to block Trump's executive order on voting by mail
- The Hill: Judge clears way for Trump mail-in ballot executive order
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