Trump Loses on Mail-in Voting

A federal appeals court dealt a blow over the weekend to one of President Trump's efforts to change mail-in voting rules ahead of the midterms. In a 2-1 decision, the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals refused Saturday to lift a lower-court injunction that blocked parts of Trump's order, siding with Democratic-led states including California, Massachusetts, and Washington, which argued the directive was unconstitutional, the Hill reports. While Trump touted the proposed changes as safeguards to keep noncitizens from voting, per the AP, state election officials argued they were ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.

Trump's order told the Department of Homeland Security to assemble state-by-state lists of eligible voters using sensitive federal citizenship data and instructed the Justice Department to investigate officials who send ballots to people deemed ineligible. The lower-court judge, Indira Talwani, ruled Trump lacked authority to direct DHS or the Postal Service on such matters and wrote that he could not use incomplete citizenship lists to pressure or threaten local election officials "lest they face criminal prosecution." The Justice Department said it may ask the Supreme Court to step in, per the Hill.