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The Elections Order

Two tracks, opposite results, three days apart · Active

Executive Order 14399, Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg. 17125 (Mar. 31, 2026), directs federal agencies to build citizenship lists and to have the Postal Service refuse to carry mail ballots from voters not on a state-specific list. Two separate sets of plaintiffs challenged it and got opposite results in the same week. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia won summary judgment in Massachusetts and kept it when the First Circuit refused to pause the ruling. The national Democratic Party committees lost in Washington, where the D.C. Circuit held their challenge unripe. The difference is not that the two courts disagree about whether the order is lawful. Neither has decided that. The difference is who was harmed, and when.

The States
State of California v. Trump
1:26-cv-11581 · D. Mass. · 2026-06-25
Judge Indira Talwani, 37 pages. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia challenged Sections 2, 3 and 5 of the order as ultra vires and unconstitutional, invoking the separation of powers, the Elections and Electors Clauses, and the Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering doctrine. The court granted the states summary judgment and entered final judgment on July 7, 2026. The states' injury was money and time already spent: they had begun diverting elections staff and rewriting procedures to comply before the November election.
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Memorandum & Order, Judge Talwani (37 pp., June 25, 2026)
The States
State of California v. Trump (1st Cir.)
26-1774 and 26-1779 · 1st Cir. · 2026-07-25
Judges Gelpi, Rikelman and Dunlap DENIED the government's motion to stay the judgment pending appeal, so the ruling against the order stays in force. The panel noted that the government did not defend the legality of the order in seeking the stay, did not contest the district court's assessment of the summary judgment record, and did not dispute that the states had begun spending time and diverting resources. The government also conceded that any citizenship list it compiled would necessarily be incomplete. This is a stay ruling. The merits appeal is still pending. Judge Dunlap would have stayed part of the judgment.
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Order denying stay pending appeal (July 25, 2026)
The States
Trump v. California (Supreme Court)
26A124 · U.S. · U.S. Supreme Court · 2026-07-27
Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an Application for a Stay of the Injunction and Request for Administrative Stay. This is an application to switch the ruling off while the case proceeds. It is not an appeal and not a petition for certiorari.
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Application for a stay and request for administrative stay (July 27, 2026)
The Party Committees
DSCC v. Trump
1:26-cv-01114 · D.D.C. · 2026-05-28
Judge Carl J. Nichols denied a preliminary injunction on May 28, 2026, after a hearing on May 14. The plaintiffs are the national Democratic Party committees, who sued the day after the order issued and moved for an injunction a week later, before any agency had acted.
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The Party Committees
DSCC v. Trump (D.C. Cir.)
26-5193 · D.C. Cir. · 2026-07-28
Judges Millett, Wilkins and Katsas AFFIRMED, unpublished, on ripeness. In Section III.B the panel identified four types of injury the committees claimed, privacy, voting rights, political-competitor interests and organizational resource diversion, and held that each flows not from the order itself but from predicted future agency action. The court leaned on Trump v. New York, 141 S. Ct. 530 (2020). It was explicit that it was not blessing the order: the plaintiffs, it wrote, have identified a number of serious questions concerning the lawfulness of proposed actions if implemented on the threshold of the upcoming federal election. It also distinguished these plaintiffs from the states charged with administering elections.
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Judgment affirming denial of preliminary injunction (8 pp., July 28, 2026)
Updated 2026-07-28 · 5 cases tracked