Since early 2025, two Trump executive orders overhauling federal election administration have generated an unusually large wave of litigation. Federal courts have permanently blocked the central provisions of the March 2025 order, challenges to a successor order signed in March 2026 are pending in federal courts in Boston and Washington, and the Justice Department is separately suing roughly 30 states over access to voter registration data. The elections lawsuits over these executive orders, together with the parallel DOJ cases and a Supreme Court case on mail ballot deadlines, will shape how the 2026 midterms are run.
What the 2025 Executive Order Tried to Do
On March 25, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14248, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” It directed the Election Assistance Commission to require documentary proof of citizenship, such as a U.S. passport or REAL ID, for anyone registering to vote on the national mail registration form. It ordered federal agencies running public assistance programs to assess citizenship before handing out registration forms. It read federal statutes to require that mail ballots be both cast and received by Election Day, targeting roughly a dozen states that count ballots postmarked on time but arriving later, and it told the EAC to condition federal election funding on compliance. The order also directed the EAC to pull certifications for voting systems using barcodes or QR codes to count votes, and told DHS and the Social Security Administration to open federal databases to states for voter list maintenance.
Court Rulings Blocking the 2025 Order
Within a week of the signing, three major federal lawsuits were on file. Every significant enforcement mechanism in the order has since been blocked by at least one federal court.
LULAC and the DNC Case in Washington, D.C.
On April 1, 2025, the League of Women Voters Education Fund, the NAACP, the Hispanic Federation, and other civil rights groups sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, represented by the Brennan Center for Justice, the ACLU, and others. The case was assigned to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly and consolidated with related suits, including one brought by the Democratic National Committee and Democratic congressional leaders.
The plaintiffs argued the president has no constitutional authority to dictate election rules to an independent federal agency, pointing to the National Voter Registration Act’s delegation of regulatory authority over the federal registration form to the EAC.
Judge Kollar-Kotelly issued a preliminary injunction on April 24, 2025, blocking the EAC from implementing the proof-of-citizenship mandate. On October 31, 2025, she granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs and entered a permanent injunction, holding that the president has no constitutional authority to set election rules unilaterally and calling the mandate a violation of the separation of powers.
On January 30, 2026, the court expanded the permanent injunction to block two additional provisions: the requirement that public assistance agencies assess citizenship before providing registration forms, and the requirement for proof of citizenship on the Federal Post Card Application used by military and overseas voters. Both were held “inconsistent with the constitutional separation of powers.”
The Justice Department appealed the October 2025 ruling to the D.C. Circuit on December 23, 2025. As of June 2026 the appeal is pending, consolidated with related appeals, with competing motions for summary relief filed and no oral argument scheduled.
The Massachusetts and Washington State Rulings
In June 2025, Judge Denise Casper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction in a suit brought by a coalition of state attorneys general. Her order blocked the proof-of-citizenship requirement, the citizenship-assessment mandate for public assistance agencies, the Election Day mail ballot receipt deadline as applied to 13 states, and the threat to withhold EAC funding from noncompliant states.
In Washington v. Trump, Judge John H. Chun of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington entered a permanent injunction on January 9, 2026. He found the order “largely exceeded the president’s authority” and blocked five sections, including the proof-of-citizenship requirement, the EAC funding cutoff, the voting machine certification mandate, and the provisions threatening prosecution of states that counted late-arriving mail ballots. The court also held that state ballot-receipt deadlines are not preempted by federal election-day statutes.
Some provisions remain active, including those directing information-sharing between DHS and the states for voter list maintenance.
The 2026 Executive Order and Its New Challenges
On March 31, 2026, Trump signed a second order, Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” Where the 2025 order worked through the EAC, this one leans on the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service.
DHS, working with the Social Security Administration, is directed to compile “State Citizenship Lists” of confirmed U.S. citizens over 18, drawing on naturalization records, SSA data, and the DHS SAVE database, and to send those lists to state election officials at least 60 days before each federal election. The order specifies that appearing on the list does not itself mean a person is registered. The Postmaster General is directed to begin rulemaking requiring a unique Intelligent Mail barcode on all mail-in ballot envelopes. More consequentially, the USPS is told not to transmit mail ballots unless the voter appears on a state-provided “Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” with states required to notify the USPS of their intent to use mail voting at least 90 days before an election and to provide the participation list at least 60 days out. The Attorney General is authorized to prioritize prosecution of election officials involved in distributing ballots to ineligible voters, and federal funds may be withheld from noncompliant states.
The 24-State Coalition Suit in Boston
On April 3, 2026, a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, before Judge Indira Talwani. The suit is co-led by the attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, Nevada, and Washington, and joined by attorneys general from Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin, along with the Governor of Pennsylvania.
The states argue the order violates the separation of powers by trying to seize control of elections from the states and Congress, and that the president cannot unilaterally direct the USPS to regulate mail ballot delivery or compel the creation of federal voter eligibility lists. They have also raised reliability concerns about the SAVE database, citing a report that found incorrect results for 35 percent of individuals processed in one Missouri county.
On April 23, 2026, the states filed a motion for summary judgment, declaratory relief, and a permanent injunction. A preliminary injunction hearing was held on June 2, 2026, with a separate group of voting rights organizations also seeking to block the mail ballot provisions. As of mid-June 2026 the court had not ruled.
The D.C. Ripeness Ruling
Voting rights groups and Democratic Party organizations brought parallel challenges in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. On May 28, 2026, Judge Carl Nichols declined to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the mail ballot and citizenship list provisions. He found the challenge premature: because the USPS had not yet issued a proposed rule and DHS had not yet compiled the citizenship lists, the plaintiffs could not show concrete harm. Nichols ruled the claims not yet ripe for judicial review, but noted that plaintiffs could renew their motions once the agencies take concrete steps to implement the order. No appeal had been filed as of early June 2026.
The practical result is a split in posture between the two courts hearing challenges to the same order. The Boston case, where states are pressing for expedited relief with the November midterms approaching, could produce a ruling before the D.C. litigation advances.
DOJ Voter Roll Lawsuits Against the States
Running alongside the executive order fights is a separate Justice Department campaign to pull detailed voter registration data from the states. The DOJ demanded statewide voter registration lists, including driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, from nearly every state and the District of Columbia. When most states refused or provided only publicly available information, the DOJ sued.
As of mid-2026, the DOJ has filed suit against 30 states and D.C., citing the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act. The administration says it needs the data to verify that states are removing ineligible voters and to cross-reference voter rolls against the DHS SAVE database.
About a dozen states have fully complied, including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming, several after signing confidential memoranda of understanding. Five states provided only publicly available information such as names and addresses.
Federal courts have dismissed DOJ suits against at least six states: California, Michigan, Oregon, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The DOJ has appealed several of those dismissals. The Michigan appeal is before the Sixth Circuit; the California and Oregon appeals are in the Ninth Circuit. All three were argued in May 2026 and are awaiting decisions. Additional appeals in Arizona, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and Wisconsin were filed in June 2026. Oklahoma is the only state to have settled with the DOJ.
On April 21, 2026, Common Cause and four individual plaintiffs sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the entire national voter database initiative. They argue the DOJ lacks congressional authorization to build a centralized voter surveillance system, that cross-referencing voter data against SAVE could lead to illegal purges of eligible voters, and that the program violates federal transparency requirements for government data collection. Both sides have filed competing motions for summary judgment, and the case remains pending.
Mail Ballot Deadlines at the Supreme Court
A separate line of litigation could reshape mail voting nationwide independent of the executive orders. In March 2025, U.S. Representative Darrell Issa sued in the Southern District of California challenging the state’s law allowing mail ballots to be counted if received within seven days of Election Day, provided they are postmarked on time. Issa argues the law violates federal statutes establishing a single national Election Day.
In January 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections that candidates have standing to challenge vote-counting procedures in federal court, even without proving a specific risk of losing. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a five-justice majority, held that candidates have a “personal stake” in the integrity of the electoral process distinct from that of the general public. Justices Jackson and Sotomayor dissented in the 5-4 decision, which lowered the bar for candidates to challenge state election rules in federal court.
The Issa case is now stayed pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Watson v. Republican National Committee, which addresses whether Mississippi’s law allowing late-arriving mail ballots is preempted by federal election-day statutes. The Court heard argument in Watson on March 23, 2026; reporting from the argument suggested the justices appeared inclined to side with the challengers. A decision is expected by late June or early July 2026. A ruling that federal law requires ballots to be received by Election Day would invalidate the receipt deadlines in more than a dozen states before the November 2026 midterms.
The Fulton County Ballot Seizure Dispute
The Trump administration has also pursued federal investigations into the 2020 presidential election, and at least one of those investigations has produced an active court fight. In January 2026, the FBI seized more than 600 boxes of 2020 election ballots and related records from Fulton County, Georgia, including tabulator tapes, ballot images, and voter rolls.
Fulton County officials challenged the seizure with a motion for return of property, arguing the search lacked probable cause and violated the Fourth Amendment. On May 6, 2026, Judge J.P. Boulee denied the motion. In a 68-page ruling, he found that while the underlying affidavit was “defective in some respects” and contained “troubling” statements, those shortcomings did not meet the threshold for ordering the materials returned. He noted the county had not shown irreparable harm because the DOJ had provided copies of the seized materials.
Legal experts quoted in reporting have observed that the five-year statute of limitations for most criminal charges tied to the 2020 election expired in 2025, raising questions about the viability of any prosecutions arising from the broader investigation.
Where This Leaves the 2026 Cycle
The pattern across these cases is consistent on the constitutional question. Judge Kollar-Kotelly, Judge Chun, and Judge Casper all held, in different forms, that the power to regulate federal elections belongs to Congress and the states, not the president. The 2025 order’s enforcement teeth have been pulled, though the government’s appeal is still live in the D.C. Circuit. The 2026 order’s fate turns largely on the Boston case before Judge Talwani, with the D.C. litigation waiting on concrete implementing steps by DHS and the USPS. The DOJ’s voter-roll suits have divided the states into those that complied and those that are winning dismissals, with appeals piling up in the Sixth and Ninth Circuits. And a Supreme Court ruling in Watson, expected within weeks, could rewrite the mail ballot rules the executive orders tried to impose, regardless of how the executive-order cases come out.