A federal judge on Wednesday permanently blocked key parts of President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to change how federal elections are conducted. The order would have required voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and would have restricted the counting of certain mail-in ballots.
But in a decision issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper struck down provisions that would have required proof of citizenship for voter registration and directed states to count only mail-in ballots received by Election Day.
The ruling delivers a significant setback to the administration’s efforts to tighten election rules at the federal level. Casper rejected the justification offered for the order, finding no evidence to support claims of widespread election misconduct.
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“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,” Judge Casper wrote.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by a coalition of state attorneys general in Boston more than a year ago challenging Trump’s voting order. Casper had previously halted the policy through a preliminary injunction in June 2025. Her latest decision makes that block permanent.
In her 59-page opinion, Casper said the administration failed to demonstrate that stricter federal election rules were necessary and warned that the measures could have disenfranchised thousands of eligible voters.
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“There is no evidence in this record of widespread ‘illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error’ within American elections, which the Executive Order purports to safeguard against,” she wrote.
The ruling is the latest court defeat for the administration’s broader push to expand federal involvement in election administration. Legal challenges remain pending against a separate Trump executive order that sought to create a national database of approved voters.
Earlier this week, another federal judge blocked an effort to use an immigration database to verify voter rolls, while courts in several states have rejected Justice Department requests for voter registration records.