Federal Court Hands Trump Win In Battle Over Mail-In Voting Order

A federal appellate court handed President Trump a decisive win on Tuesday in an ongoing legal battle over his mail-in voting executive order.

In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down Democrats’ lawfare against Trump’s March elections order. That directive, as summarized by the court, “directs the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Postal Service, and other agencies to begin developing new rules and procedures for mail voting in the upcoming midterm and future elections.”

The Democrat plaintiffs filed their lawsuit a day after the order was issued. They subsequently asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia a week later to issue a preliminary injunction blocking its enforcement.

The district court rejected that request.

In affirming the lower court’s ruling, the D.C. Circuit panel noted that “while Plaintiffs have identified a number of serious questions concerning the lawfulness of proposed actions if implemented on the threshold of the upcoming federal election, this case likely is unripe for review in its present posture.” In other words, the case is unreviewable at this time because the named agencies haven’t implemented their official rules as required by the president’s order.

“In particular, Plaintiffs’ request for preliminary relief ‘is premised on the threatened impact’ of the Executive Order after it is implemented and if in violation of federal law,” the court ruled. “In addition, the Executive Order, which is not self-executing, directs the agencies to act only to ‘the extent feasible and consistent with applicable law, including but not limited to the Privacy Act of 1974,’ and so requires compliance with the very legal limitations about which Plaintiffs are concerned.”

The appellate court said that plaintiffs may seek relief “[i]f the defendant agencies take steps to implement the Executive Order in a manner that violates federal law or the Constitution.” The panel was comprised of Judges Patricia Millett (Obama appointee), Robert Wilkins (Obama appointee), and Gregory Katsas (Trump appointee).

The ruling was handed down a day after the Trump administration filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court to pause a Massachusetts-based judge’s injunction against the mail-in voting order. Similar to the D.C. Circuit, the Justice Department argued that “the injunction is especially indefensible because the agencies are still deliberating over how (if at all) to implement the Order.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who oversees emergency applications from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, has given respondents until 4 p.m. ET on Aug. 3 to file a response to the government’s application.