Why Did a Judge Only Block Part of Trump's Voter Suppression Order?

You may have seen the news today that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly blocked some of Trump's unconstitutional Executive Order overhauling US elections. Let's look at why she didn't block all of it.

Recently, multiple organizations sued the Trump administration over an executive order called “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” Here are the five provisions of the order the court is considering:

First, Section 2(a) orders the Election Assistance Commission—a bipartisan, independent regulatory commission—to amend the standardized national voter registration form to require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. Second, Section 2(b) orders the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State to open certain databases to the United States DOGE Service and the States to search for non-citizens who have registered to vote. Third, Section 2(d) orders federal voter registration agencies to “assess” the citizenship of individuals who receive public assistance before providing them a voter registration form. Fourth, Section 7(a) orders the Attorney General to “enforce” two statutes “against States” that do not adopt the President’s view that mail-in ballots must be received by election day to be counted. Fifth, Section 7(b) orders the Election Assistance Commission to withhold certain federal grants from States that do not comply.

The judge reminds us that the court is not considering “whether the President’s executive order reflects good policy choices or even whether the policies it describes would be legal if implemented. Rather, this Court’s task is to decide whether the President can dictate those policies unilaterally, or whether that power is reserved to Congress and the States alone.”

The Trump administration isn’t really arguing that he has the power to do this unilaterally (probably because he clearly doesn’t.) Instead, the administration is arguing that the consolidated cases have been brought “by the wrong plaintiffs at the wrong time.”

While it’s pretty obvious that the president has no role in administering elections, the judge agrees there are threshold problems for the plaintiffs with three of the provisions at issue. Namely 2(b): having states search DOGE databases for ineligible voters, 7(a): ordering the Attorney General to enforce statutes against states that count mail-in ballots after election day, and 7(b): withholding federal grants from states that don’t comply.

You’ll notice they all mention “states”, and the judge says here that it would be more proper for the states to bring these suits - and many of them already have - because they are the aggrieved parties.

Additionally, the issues may not be ripe. For example, the DNC says that DOGE accessing information on Americans to determine their eligibility to vote would violate the Privacy Act. However, that hasn’t happened yet, and the court can’t assume it will. If they do, then the DNC would be in a better position to sue:

That is not to say that the Democratic Party Plaintiffs’ claim lacks merit entirely. Once the record is developed, and once Defendants’ plans to implement Section 2(b) are clear, the Democratic Party Plaintiffs may be able to seek appropriate relief under either the Privacy Act or the Administrative Procedure Act.

Same with provision 7(a). Since the EO says that the Attorney General must follow the law, the court can’t assume she’s going to violate it until she does. And beyond that, if the Attorney General were to bring some sort of adverse action, it would be against the states - not the parties in the suit.

And again with 7(b), the harm hasn’t happened yet, and it would be the states themselves that suffer.

Regarding the other two provisions where the plaintiffs meet the standing and timing thresholds, the judge writes:

But the defendants’ threshold arguments falter with respect to the plaintiffs’ challenges to Sections 2(a) and 2(d). And on the merits, the plaintiffs are substantially likely to prevail: Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States—not the President—with the authority to regulate federal elections. Consistent with that allocation of power, Congress is currently debating legislation that would effect many of the changes the President purports to order. See Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, H.R. 22, 119th Cong. (2025). And no statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.

So to be clear, the judge didn’t give Trump a pass on three of the five provisions of his executive order because she doesn’t think they’re wrong and dangerous - it’s just that other parties are better suited to file (and some have), or the administration hasn’t done anything wrong (yet).

Based on that, the judge granted the preliminary injunction blocking 2(a) and 2(d), but not 2(b), 7(a), or 7(d).

The plaintiffs have also shown that implementation of Sections 2(a) and 2(d) by the Election Assistance Commission and other federal agencies would cause them irreparable harm and would not be in the public interest. As a result, they are entitled to a preliminary injunction against that implementation.

You can read the full order here.

I just didn’t want you to think the judge agreed at all with any part of the executive order.

~AG