The ruling converts a preliminary injunction that the judge had issued a year ago into a permanent ban.
By Catholics for Catholics
A federal judge on Wednesday barred President Donald Trump’s administration for good from executing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which wanted to compel people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston in effect turns a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she provisionally blocked many of Trump’s efforts to renovate elections, into a permanent prohibition, according to a story by The Epoch Times.
“Our Constitution vests control over federal elections in the States, subject to some oversight by Congress,” Casper, who serves in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, wrote in the order. “While the Constitution vests the President with ‘executive power’ and commands him to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ it does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.”
In her order Casper rebuffed the Trump administration’s contention that the lawsuit to block the changes brought by Democratic state attorneys general was hasty because the rules had yet to be implemented. Instead, she agreed that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump’s conditions violated the separation of powers.
The issue is a March 2025 order signed by Trump titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” which had commanded the federal Election Assistance Commission to ensure that proof-of-citizenship requirements were carried out in national mail voter registration applications.
In addition, it directed that the attorney general implement penalties on states that count mail-in ballots received after Election Day.
“States fail adequately to vet voters’ citizenship, and, in recent years, the Department of Justice has failed to prioritize and devote sufficient resources for enforcement of these provisions,” said the order, in part, providing the Trump administration’s rationale on why the measure is needed. “Even worse, the prior administration actively prevented States from removing aliens from their voter lists.”
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