A federal judge Friday (1/30/2026) permanently blocked key portions of the sweeping anti-voting executive order that President Donald Trump signed last year.
Beyond simply stopping the order, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, minced no words in rebuking Trump’s attempt to expand the executive branch’s power over elections, describing it as both unconstitutional and a threat to democracy.
“The Framers of our Constitution recognized that power over election rules could be abused, either to destroy the national government or to disempower the people from acting as a check on their elected representatives,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
“Accordingly, they entrusted this power to the parts of our government that they believed would be most responsive to the will of the people: first to the States, and then, in some instances, to Congress.
“They assigned no role at all to the President,” she added. “Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures.”
Through his order, Trump attempted to make registering to vote and remaining registered more difficult by imposing documentary proof of citizenship requirements for a federal registration form.
He also tried to condition election funding for states on compliance with parts of the order while urging his attorney general to take aim at states that have extended mail ballot receipt deadlines.
Several parts of the order have been preliminarily blocked by court orders in several different lawsuits. But Friday Kollar-Kotelly permanently halted two core parts.
First, she said the order’s attempt to require that federal agencies “assess citizenship” before providing an important federal mail voter registration form to enrollees in public assistance programs could not stand.
The judge said Trump exceeded his lawful authority in promulgating this provision because “our Constitution vests the authority to regulate federal elections in Congress and the States alone.”
Second, Kollar-Kotelly also said the order’s attempt to require documentary proof of citizenship on the federal post card application for military and overseas voters was unconstitutional for the same reason.
“Put simply, our Constitution does not allow the President to impose unilateral changes to federal election procedures,” the judge wrote.
Kollar-Kotelly made the ruling in a case involving three consolidated lawsuits against Trump’s order, one brought by the Democratic Party*, another by the League of United Latin American Citizens and the last by the League of Women Voters Education Fund.