U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued a ruling on May 28, 2026 declining to temporarily block President Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting. The ruling leaves the order in effect for now.
The executive order directs the administration to compile a list of “confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state.” Under the order, the U.S. Postal Service would only deliver mail-in ballots to voters on the resulting DHS-maintained list. The order is administered by DHS, not by state election officials, and it tests the constitutional limits of federal authority over election administration — a power assigned to the states under Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution.
Nichols's reasoning, in full: the Democratic plaintiffs filed too early. The government has not yet produced any citizenship lists, and the Postal Service has not yet implemented any new rules. “Given that the Executive Order does not command Plaintiffs to do anything, and that no agency has yet acted pursuant to the Order in a way that could harm Plaintiffs, they have not suffered any harm at present.”
Another federal judge in Boston is preparing a decision on a similar set of lawsuits, expected as soon as early June. Plaintiffs in the D.C. case may renew their motions if and when the administration takes implementing action — but the order itself stands.
The ruling sits inside a documented pattern of Trump-administration election-rigging actions ahead of the 2026 midterms (see The White House Won't Rule Out ICE at the Polls, and Denver Sues After Mullin Says Agents Could Serve Warrants There, League of Women Voters and ACLU Sue Alaska for Handing Voter Rolls to Trump's DOJ for Possible Purges, Alabama Rushes a Special Session After Callais to Undo Its Second Majority-Black District, Aiming for a 7-0 GOP Delegation).
The case came back after the Postal Service finalized a rule carrying out the order. In September, Nichols issued a preliminary injunction blocking it, writing in a 24-page opinion that “No statute grants the Postal Service the power to issue key parts of the Rule” and that “The key portions of the Rule exceed any conception of the outer bounds of these authorities.” He found that “the Federal Government does not point to any record evidence that there will be significant fraud in the upcoming elections.” Democracy Docket reported that his order also bars states from voluntarily working on the rule. On September 14 the Supreme Court denied the administration's request to let the rule take effect for the midterms (see The Supreme Court Keeps the Postal Service Ballot Rule Out of the Midterms, and Trump Calls the Justices 'a Shell of Their Original Selves').