A federal judge on Thursday blocked the implementation of key parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail voting, declaring the plans to intervene in state-run elections unconstitutional.
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Trump’s March executive order directed the creation of federal lists of voters and asked the Postal Service to only deliver mail ballots to certain people on those lists.
The ruling to stop enforcing the executive order came from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.
The decision is a blow to Trump, though an expected one, ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. Election experts have said they anticipated the order would be blocked because the Constitution gives control over election administration to the states.
A separate ruling from a federal judge in Boston on Wednesday permanently barred Trump from implementing the first executive order he signed on elections in his second term. That order sought to require voters to show proof of citizenship when registering.
Fueled by his own baseless allegations of widespread fraud, Trump has made major changes to American elections a key priority since returning to office last year.
In addition to the two executive orders, the president has floating nationalizing elections, while his administration has sought access to state’s voter rolls and is investigating past elections.
Trump has also spent months demanding that Congress pass the SAVE America Act, which proposes new proof-of- citizenship and voter ID requirements. It lacks the necessary support in the GOP-led Senate to pass under the current rules.
On Wednesday, he canceled plans to sign a major bipartisan piece of legislation designed to lower the cost of housing, saying the SAVE America Act must pass first.
Trump’s administration includes a number of people involved in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including Kurt Olsen, who is now director of election security and integrity at the White House, and Heather Honey, who works on election issues at Department of Homeland Security. Both were involved in discussions on the March executive order, NBC News previously reported.
Still, the Trump administration has struggled to demonstrate evidence of the widespread voter fraud he claims occurred in the 2020 election.
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