Courts likely to block Trump’s effort to curtail mail-in voting – Roll Call

## Summary
President Donald Trump displays an executive order he signed Tuesday cracking down on mail-in voting ahead of midterm elections in the Oval Office. ( Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images ) By Michael Macagnone Posted April 2, 2026 at 6:02pm Facebook Twitter Email Reddit President Donald Trump’s effort to curtail mail voting through executive order will likely be ruled illegal in at least one of several lawsuits filed this week, experts said, the latest in the president’s long-running effort to assert federal control of elections. Levitt said the executive order runs into a fundamental problem: the Constitution gives states the primary role in running elections, with the possibility for Congress to weigh in on the rules. Levitt said Congress has not given Trump the power he claimed in the executive order. “Congress has not given the president a role of any significance in the electoral process. All argue the president violated the Constitution and federal law with the order and contend Trump overstepped constitutional bounds by asserting power over state elections. “The Order is an attack on the constitutionally mandated checks and balances that keep American elections free and fair,” the LULAC complaint said.

## Article Content
President Donald Trump displays an executive order he signed Tuesday cracking down on mail-in voting ahead of midterm elections in the Oval Office. (
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
)
By
Michael Macagnone
Posted April 2, 2026 at 6:02pm
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Reddit
President Donald Trump’s effort to curtail mail voting through executive order will likely be ruled illegal in at least one of several lawsuits filed this week, experts said, the latest in the president’s long-running effort to assert federal control of elections.
Democratic party groups and civil rights organizations have already filed three lawsuits over the executive order that Trump
issued
Tuesday entitled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.”
The
order
dovetails with Trump’s broader year-long effort to assert more federal control over elections ahead of the midterms. It would enact changes to voting nationwide to follow what the president called the “unavoidable duty” to enforce federal law.
That would include sending each state lists of “individuals confirmed to be United States citizens” who are eligible to vote in elections and mandating the U.S. Postal Service only carry election mail for approved voters.
Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University who focuses on election law, said the order’s “primary directive to tell the Postal Service not to deliver mail unless they’re on his ‘naughty and nice’ list is flatly illegal, and I expect it will take a court about 30 seconds to say so.”
“I don’t think that’s actually a hard call here. The thing that you should picture is the president deciding which Christmas cards the Postal Service should deliver. That seems plainly, obviously beyond his authority,” Levitt said.
Levitt said the executive order runs into a fundamental problem: the Constitution gives states the primary role in running elections, with the possibility for Congress to weigh in on the rules. Levitt said Congress has not given Trump the power he claimed in the executive order.
“Congress has not given the president a role of any significance in the electoral process. There are plenty of people whose job it is to oversee the election process, and the president’s not on that list. And again, that’s not an oversight, that’s by design,” Levitt said.
Voter rolls
Tuesday’s executive order asserted a broad power to oversee federal elections. The order said the government would use Social Security Administration records and the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system to verify citizenship for every potential voter in the country.
Additionally, the order directed the U.S. Postal Service to put new restrictions on mail ballots, seeking to prevent widespread use of mail balloting. States that do not comply would lose federal funding, according to the order.
Ruth Greenwood, an assistant professor of law and director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, said there are numerous other problems with the executive order that would make it difficult or illegal to implement. The United States does not have a national voter list, Greenwood said, or the infrastructure to make one.
“We just don’t have a national list of voters, and so there’s no way to provide something like that to the U.S. Postal Service. And so then that runs into being unconstitutional in terms of a burden on the fundamental right to vote,” Greenwood said.
The kind of systems contemplated by the executive order would take years to create, Greenwood said. Creating a voter list from scratch and allowing USPS to decide whether to deliver individual pieces of election mail would likely violate Americans’ right to vote, she said.
“They have a right to vote and making them jump through seven literal hoops is not part of it,” Greenwood said.
Richard Briffault, a law professor at Columbia Law School, said there were still more problems with the order, including the fact that Congress has even less authority over state elections, and ballots for state elections are also carried by USPS.
The three lawsuits had been filed as of Thursday afternoon — one from national Democratic party and campaign groups in Washington D.C.; a second from the ACLU, League of Women Voters and other civil rights groups in Massachusetts; and a third from the League of United Latin American Citizens and other groups in Washington, D.C.
All argue the president violated the Constitution and federal law with the order and contend Trump overstepped constitutional bounds by asserting power over state elections.
“The Order is an attack on the constitutionally mandated checks and balances that keep American elections free and fair,” the LULAC complaint said.
Further, the lawsuits argued that Trump sidestepped the normal federal structure to try and force USPS to adopt his preferred election structure.
“The Constitution does not grant the President power to regulate federal elections or USPS, and Congre

---

## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- Recent Stories Courts likely to block Trump’s effort to curtail mail-in voting At the Races: Operation Republican rescue Pamela Bondi, staunch Trump ally, out as attorney general Democrats eye 2028 for bigger health care push Senate Democrats call on CMS to rein in Medicare Advantage abuses Senate tees up bill to end Homeland Security shutdown

### Areas for Consideration
- Levitt said the executive order runs into a fundamental problem: the Constitution gives states the primary role in running elections, with the possibility for Congress to weigh in on the rules.
- Ruth Greenwood, an assistant professor of law and director of the Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School, said there are numerous other problems with the executive order that would make it difficult or illegal to implement.
- To the contrary, Congress enacted a detailed statutory framework governing both federal elections and the operations of USPS — and nowhere authorized the President to issue anything like the directives set forth in the Executive Order,” the ACLU complaint said.

### Implications
- President Donald Trump displays an executive order he signed Tuesday cracking down on mail-in voting ahead of midterm elections in the Oval Office. ( Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images ) By Michael Macagnone Posted April 2, 2026 at 6:02pm Facebook Twitter Email Reddit President Donald Trump’s effort to curtail mail voting through executive order will likely be ruled illegal in at least one of several lawsuits filed this week, experts said, the latest in the president’s long-running effort to assert federal control of elections.
- Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University who focuses on election law, said the order’s “primary directive to tell the Postal Service not to deliver mail unless they’re on his ‘naughty and nice’ list is flatly illegal, and I expect it will take a court about 30 seconds to say so.” “I don’t think that’s actually a hard call here.
- The thing that you should picture is the president deciding which Christmas cards the Postal Service should deliver.
- Separately, the Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a Mississippi law that allows state officials to count ballots that arrive after Election Day, in a case that could impact the more than two dozen states with similar laws.

### Expert Commentary
This article covers order, elections, trump topics. Notable strengths include discussion of order. Areas of concern are also raised. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1183.