A Boston judge keeps the challenge to Executive Order 14399 alive, but trims it in ways that help the Indiana-led states.
Indiana and 11 other Republican-led states lost their bid Wednesday to shut down a lawsuit over President Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting — though the judge did narrow the case in ways that favor them.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, in Boston, denied in large part a motion by the states and the federal government to dismiss the suit. Her ruling clears the voting-rights groups that brought the case to move forward on five of their six claims.
The lawsuit challenges Executive Order 14399, which directs the U.S. Postal Service to write rules barring it from delivering mail ballots the administration deems “non-compliant.” The plaintiffs say the order would keep eligible voters from casting ballots.
Talwani wrote that the risk is immediate. Voters who rely on the mail — including those living overseas, residing out of state, or with disabilities — face disenfranchisement that is “plausibly likely and imminent” if the order takes effect before the November election, she found.
The surviving claims include arguments that the president exceeded his authority and intruded on election powers the Constitution assigns to the states and Congress. “The President plays no role in the regulation of elections,” Talwani wrote.
The states did score two narrower points. The judge dismissed one of the six counts — a claim under federal administrative and privacy law — and limited the plaintiffs’ standing to the Nov. 3 election rather than future ones. But the core of the case survived.
Indiana joined the suit as an intervenor to help defend the order, part of a 12-state coalition led by Missouri and coordinated with America First Legal, a group aligned with the administration. Attorney General Todd Rokita and Secretary of State Diego Morales have led Indiana’s effort, spending more than a year pushing to tighten citizenship verification for voters.
The states had argued the challenge was premature because the postal rule is not yet in place. Talwani rejected that for the coming election, citing a Sept. 4 deadline for the federal government to hand states its lists of “confirmed citizens.”
The decision is the latest step in fast-moving litigation. A federal court in Washington blocked the postal rule earlier this month. Days later, Talwani turned down the plaintiffs’ first request to freeze the order, saying the Washington ruling already covered it. With the case now cleared to proceed, the groups have renewed their request for a preliminary injunction; a hearing is set for Aug. 7, according to the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs include the League of Women Voters, the Association of Americans Resident Overseas, the U.S. Vote Foundation, OCA–Asian Pacific American Advocates, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. They are represented by the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the Legal Defense Fund, among others. In a statement, the groups said they were “committed to fighting this unconstitutional and unlawful executive order.”
