The Daily Fuckup

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday blocked additional provisions of President Donald Trump’s election executive order, narrowing another attempt by the White House to impose new voting rules from the top down. Judge Denise J. Casper said the states challenging the order were likely to succeed, and wrote that the Constitution does not give the president specific powers over elections.

The order, signed March 25, sought to require documentary proof of citizenship for people registering to vote in federal elections, to accept only mailed ballots received by Election Day, and to tie federal election grant funding to states complying with the new deadline. Casper’s ruling blocked those provisions after Democratic state attorneys general argued the directive intruded on state control over election administration.

The decision was the second judicial setback for the order. A federal judge in Washington had already blocked part of it, including the proof-of-citizenship requirement for the federal voter registration form. Friday’s ruling added to that earlier loss by reaching the mailed-ballot deadline and the funding conditions attached to it.

Trump has said the order is meant to secure elections against noncitizen voting. The court did not accept the administration’s claim that the president could set those rules on his own. Instead, the ruling left the executive branch with a narrower path and a longer legal fight over what parts of the order, if any, can survive.