June 25, 2026
You know that citizenship list that President Trump is trying to create to determine who can and cannot vote in the next election, and how he’s also trying to get the United States Postal Service to determine who can and cannot receive a mail-in ballot? Yeah—a federal judge just ruled today he can’t do that.
She just blocked several parts of his executive order titled Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.
And this ruling comes at a critical time because, as I told you in this video, USPS is about to finalize its new proposed rule to follow through on Trump’s demands. And just yesterday, the Postmaster General testified in front of a Senate committee that he fully intends to not deliver ballots unless the states turn over their voter rolls to the Post Office—and, by default, the Trump administration—to be verified.
Well, a federal judge in Massachusetts just put a stop to that.
She just issued this 37-page ruling that says, “Sections 2 and 3 of the EO are legally void as they are ultra vires and unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”
That means Section 2, which creates this citizenship list, and Section 3, which gives the Postal Service several new powers to determine whether or not to deliver mail-in or absentee ballots to certain voters, are now “legally void,” meaning they can no longer exist, for two reasons.
One, they are “ultra vires,” which is a Latin legal phrase that means Trump does not have the power to order such a thing. And because they both unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.
As I have been reporting for years, Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution specifically gives the states the power to conduct their elections in the way they see fit. It also gives Congress the power to pass laws governing how federal elections are conducted.
But what the Constitution does not do is give the president, the Department of Homeland Security, or the Postal Service any power to do anything regarding elections.
This all stems from a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration by 23 states and Washington, D.C. Yes, mostly blue states, but also several swing states are like, “Absolutely not.”
When it comes to the citizenship list, Trump ordered Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to create one using existing government databases.
The judge wrote in her ruling that there’s no way those lists can be accurate based on the way they’re set up right now. And she wrote that Congress has never, in the existing laws they’ve created about elections, “prescribe[d] who should be included on State voter lists. Further, neither in the Help America Vote Act nor any other federal statute does Congress authorize the federal government to create their own voting database. Instead, Congress, consistent with the Constitution, has left that authority to the States alone.”
And as for USPS, the judge wrote simply, “No law enacted by Congress delegates authority to control mail-in voting to USPS. Accordingly, USPS lacks statutory authorization to promulgate any binding regulations on mail-in voting.”
So now what?
Well, the judge has blocked the Department of Homeland Security, USPS, and any other government agency Trump listed in his executive order. They “must, in good faith, take such steps as are necessary to prevent explicit or implicit implementation of Sections 2, 3 and 5 of the EO, and to cease and reverse any implementation of those provisions.”
That means shut it all down.
The judge also said within seven calendar days, all those government agencies must provide written notice to all states to further notify them that Sections 2 and 3 of the executive order are unlawful, null, and void.
Now, this is important.
The federal judge in Massachusetts said that this order will apply only to the midterm elections in November and all the elections prior to the midterms, so all the primaries and runoffs that are happening right now.
She said it’s too soon to argue what will happen with this executive order for any elections after the midterms.
And it’s important to know there are several lawsuits working their way through several federal courts right now that have either temporarily or permanently blocked Trump and his administration from following through on not just this election-related executive order, but the other one he signed last year.
Of course, the White House is likely going to appeal this ruling and all the other ones they lose on this issue.
So this drama is far from over.
Read the ruling here.
Watch the Postmaster General’s testimony here.
Read Trump’s Executive Order here.
