Judge Rejects Order From Trump on Voter Citizenship

President Trump's executive order mandating that a requirement for proof of citizenship be added to voter registration forms was blocked Friday by a federal judge. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, in Washington, DC, sided with Democratic and civil rights groups that sued the Trump administration over his order to overhaul elections, saying it cannot be enforced. The judge found that the proof-of-citizenship directive is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers, the AP reports. She had temporarily blocked the order in April; Friday's decision makes that permanent, per Axios.

The decision is a blow to the administration and its allies who have argued that such a mandate is necessary to restore public confidence that only Americans are voting in US elections. "Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes," Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion. The ruling permanently bars the US Election Assistance Commission, which has been considering adding the requirement to the federal voter form, from taking action to do so, per the AP.

Voting by noncitizens has been shown to be rare. Sophia Lin Lakin of the ACLU, one of the plaintiffs in the case, issued a statement calling the ruling "a clear victory for our democracy." The lawsuit brought by the DNC and various civil rights groups will continue to play out to allow the judge to consider other challenges to Trump's order. It also includes a requirement that all mailed ballots be received, rather than just postmarked, by Election Day. In early April, 19 Democratic state attorneys general asked a separate federal court to reject Trump's directive. Washington and Oregon, where virtually all voting is done with mailed ballots, followed with their own lawsuit against the order.