A federal judge in Washington, D.C., stopped President Donald Trump’s election executive order from forcing documentary proof of citizenship on people registering to vote. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued the ruling in April 2025, a month after Trump signed the order on March 25.
Three groups of plaintiffs had sued over five of its provisions. She turned down requests to block three and granted two, both tied to proof of citizenship. One would have required the Election Assistance Commission to change the national voter registration form. The other would have made federal agencies that offer voter registration to people on public assistance “assess” a person’s citizenship status first.
“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States, not the President, with the authority to regulate federal elections,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote. She noted that Congress was debating legislation that would make many of the same changes. “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”
She left the provisions on mail-in ballots and citizenship data collection in place for the time being, calling those challenges “premature” and suggesting they were better raised at the state level.
What the order sought
The Brennan Center, a legal group that is one of the plaintiffs in related litigation, described the order as an illegal attempt to take control of election systems. It listed other provisions. Voting systems previously certified by the commission would be decertified within 180 days. Mail ballots received after Election Day would draw penalties for states that count them, and 18 states currently do so if the ballots are postmarked by Election Day. And the Department of Homeland Security and Elon Musk’s DOGE would get access to state voter files.
The center said only about half of Americans hold a passport, and argued the requirement would hit younger, lower-income and minority voters hardest, along with married women whose names no longer match their citizenship papers.
The legislative track
That month the Republican-led House passed a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. It still needed to clear the Senate. The Brennan Center noted that the SAVE Act overlaps with the order’s registration rule, though the bill would also end online and mail registration.
The court fight went on. According to the Brennan Center’s update dated October 31, 2025, a federal court permanently blocked the order’s provision directing the commission to require a passport or other citizenship document on the federal form. The court granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs and found that the president lacks the authority to change election procedures on his own. Those powers belong to Congress and the states. In March 2026, the center added, Trump issued a second election executive order, and it and other groups have challenged that in court.
Sources
- The President’s March 2025 Executive Order on Elections
- Trump's executive order on voting blocked by federal judge amid flurry of legal setbacks
