A federal judge ruled Thursday against groups challenging President Trump’s plan to use the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Service to police voter fraud, finding that the organizations lack the legal standing to sue.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee to the court in Washington, said the injuries the groups foresee are too “speculative” right now.
Mr. Trump’s executive order, issued in March, directs Homeland Security to compile lists of valid citizens who would be 18 years of age on Election Day and transmit them to states.
It also instructed the Postal Service to come up with a process to police mail-in ballots and accept ballots only from those on Homeland Security’s approved citizenship lists.
Democratic political groups and immigrant rights organizations sued in Washington to halt the order.
Judge Nichols said the Postal Service hasn’t issued regulations to carry out the president’s order, so that matter is premature to decide.
And he said the DHS hasn’t created any lists yet and, even if it does and they are error-prone, no state is mandated to use them.
The judge said the two agencies could still come up with lists and regulations and that could change things.
“Until then, however, plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted,” Judge Nichols wrote.
Similar challenges to the executive order are still pending in another federal court in Massachusetts, where judges have generally ruled against the president over the last 16 months.
The Justice Department forwarded a copy of Judge Nichols’ decision to the Massachusetts court.
The Democratic campaign committees that sued, including the national party, Democrats in the House and Senate and Democratic governors, said they expect to prevail eventually.
“Democrats will continue to fight this and multiple other cynical attempts by Republicans to rig the midterms because they know they cannot win a free and fair election this year,” the organizations said.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, called the Trump executive order “voter suppression, plain and simple.”
“Congress sets the rules for federal elections — not Donald Trump, not his political allies, and not his radical judges rubber-stamping his power grabs,” Mr. Schumer said.
Both DHS and the postal service have indicated they are working on Mr. Trump’s order but have yet to announce substantive moves to implement it.
“DHS has not yet made any final decisions regarding implementation of E.O. 14,399,” an official at the department’s citizenship agency said in a filing in the Massachusetts case last week.
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