On March 31, 2026, President Trump issued Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections, purportedly mandating new rules for mail-in ballots. This is the second time the president has issued an executive order related to elections. Three courts blocked implementation of the first executive order, holding that the Constitution assigns authority over elections to the states and Congress, not the president. The second executive order on mail voting is unconstitutional for the same reason.
This executive order contains three primary policy directives. First, the order directs the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots to eligible voters unless they appear on a USPS-generated list of mail voters. It leaves the details of creating and populating that list to USPS. Second, it instructs the Department of Homeland Security to make a list of U.S. citizens in each state by combining data from several sources, despite none of those sources having comprehensive citizenship data and known flaws in that data. Third, it directs the attorney general to prosecute any individual, including election officials, who distribute federal ballots to ineligible voters.
On April 2, 2026, the Brennan Center and co-counsel American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Massachusetts, Legal Defense Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, and LatinoJustice PRLDEF filed a federal lawsuit, League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump, to challenge the executive order. The suit was filed on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, League of Women Voters, Association of Americans Resident Overseas, U.S. Vote Foundation, OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
The lawsuit challenges the executive order’s mandate to create new rules for mail voting. The plaintiffs allege that the order violates the constitutional separation of powers because the President doesn’t have authority to set election rules. Only the states and Congress may do so. The plaintiffs also allege that the order oversteps the president’s authority by attempting to direct USPS, an independent agency, tasked by law with delivering all mail. The Constitution allocates authority over the USPS to Congress, not the president. Next, the plaintiffs argue that the order’s mail voting requirements would impose an undue burden on voters in violation of the Constitution’s protections of the right to vote. The plaintiffs further claim that the order violates the Tenth Amendment by threatening not to deliver mail-in ballots unless states alter their election procedures, violates the Voting Rights Act by preventing eligible people from voting, and fails to satisfy the requirements and protections of the Privacy Act.
Case Documents
- Complaint (April 2, 2026)
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