A federal appeals court ruled in President Donald Trump’s favor but warned him that his mail voting order may be impossible to carry out and could be swiftly blocked if he tries.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that the lawsuit was not yet ready for court review, according to Democracy Docket.
The Democratic groups had not yet suffered enough concrete harm to sue, the court found.
The order directs the U.S. Postal Service to withhold mail ballots from anyone not on citizenship lists compiled by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
The Brennan Center said that millions of eligible voters could have their ballots go undelivered, with no notification that they had been blocked. The court insisted that it could intervene if Trump went too far.
“If the federal agencies were to take the actions the Plaintiffs fear and if they were to attempt to impose those massive changes on the States’ voting systems on the threshold of the upcoming election,” the court wrote, going further than its ruling required.
“Those actions (if found unlawful) could be enjoined without implicating any federalism or reliance interests because the injunction would preserve the States’ existing electoral status quo,” the judges added — meaning courts could halt the order cleanly and quickly, with no legal complications standing in the way.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and a coalition of Democratic organizations and congressional leaders filed the lawsuit in April, court records show.
They argued the Constitution gives election authority to Congress and the states, not the White House.
A separate federal appeals court, the First Circuit in Boston, had already blocked the order in 23 states over the weekend, according to Democracy Docket.
Roughly three-quarters of the 1.3 million active-duty troops are eligible to vote by mail, and critics warn the order would put those ballots at risk.
“Donald Trump is desperately trying to rig our elections by making it harder to vote for seniors, Americans with disabilities, members of the military, rural communities, and other working families who rely on vote-by-mail,” the Democratic leaders said in a joint statement. “This move is blatantly unconstitutional, and we will fight against it.”
Trump offered a different view when he signed the order in March.
“Cheating on mail-in voting is legendary. It’s horrible. Democrats want to use it for cheating,” he said.
The Department of Justice filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to allow the order to take effect before November’s midterm elections, Democracy Docket reported.
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