Authored by Stacy Robinson via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump's efforts to overhaul U.S. voting systems have been stymied by court orders finding that his tactics were legally flawed.

People vote in the mayoral election in Washington on June 16, 2026.Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

During his second term, Trump issued two executive orders on election integrity. Among other provisions, they required proof of citizenship and asked multiple federal agencies to compile a list of eligible voters in each state.

Some courts blocked his actions, saying that the requirements intruded on Americans' privacy rights and could exclude eligible voters. At least one court ruled in Trump's favor, however, creating a conflict between two judges.

Here's what to know about Trump's efforts and the legal battles surrounding them.

Trump's Orders

The president's first executive order, signed in March last year, mandated proof of citizenship when registering to vote and blocked funding for states that didn't adequately enforce election laws.

Trump also ordered the Secretary of Homeland Security to give state and local officials access to free, "appropriate systems for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals registering to vote or who are already registered."

The administration did that by modifying the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. That system was already being used to track the citizenship status of foreign-born residents in the United States since 1986.

The new system allowed users to simultaneously check data of multiple individuals - the old system did not. It also added more data from the Social Security Administration.

Trump issued a second order in March 2026, directing multiple federal agencies to compile a list of eligible voters in each state, and mandated that the United States Postal Service only send mail-in ballots to voters on that list.

That order required cooperation from multiple agencies to compile a list of eligible voters in each state.

All of those initiatives were hit with lawsuits by groups alleging they violated privacy rights, could exclude eligible voters, or were an overreach of executive authority.

Federal Voter List

After Trump's order to compile a national list of eligible voters, a host of states and the District of Columbia - led by California - sued. Meanwhile, Florida, Texas, and other red states joined on behalf of the government.

Massachusetts District Court Judge Indira Talwani ruled on June 25 that "the Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections," and his executive order did not cite any law giving him that power.

In her ruling, she said the Elections Clause of the Constitution lets state control their election laws, and Congress only had a limited power to override those laws, not the president.

"Both Congress and the President lack any role regarding voter eligibility," she wrote.

The new rule might accidentally exclude eligible voters, Talwani wrote, because "the federal government may be unaware of name changes (such as when a woman changes her name at marriage) or residence changes (where a citizen moves from state to state)."

She also struck down a provision of Trump's order requiring states to hold onto election records for five years, since Congress already set the retention time at 22 months under Title III of the Civil Rights Act.

Updated Citizenship Verification Database

Data concerns also led a judge in Washington to block Trump's updated verification database.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled on June 22 that the new system violated the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Social Security Act.

"All in all, the federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote. This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens," she wrote in her ruling.

The Privacy Act prohibits "nonconsensual disclosure of any information that has been retrieved from a protected record," and the Social Security Act restricts sharing of social security numbers.

The laws contain exceptions for "routine use," but Sooknanan said those don't apply in this case. The social security data were originally collected for work verification and benefits purposes, not to determine citizenship, she said.

Texas, which joined the case on behalf of the government, argued that another exception applied: The records could be used when they are part of a law enforcement action. But Sooknanan noted that exception required DHS to make a written request to the Social Security Administration, which did not happen in this case.

The government argued that the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 overruled the other statutes.

That law says no federal, state, or local law can be used to "prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual."

But Sooknanan ruled that law didn't apply.

"Nothing in this provision permits the Federal Defendants to create a new system of records with complete disregard for the Privacy Act's protections," she ruled.

Clash of Courts

Last December, while the case before Sooknanan was still playing out, DHS entered into an agreement allowing Florida, Ohio, Idaho, and Indiana to use the new system.

On July 8, U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell said the government needed to abide by that agreement.

"This Court is not bound by Judge Sooknanan's order, and with all due respect, the Court disagrees with the conclusions in that order," he ruled.

"The Court implicitly found that the modifications were not inconsistent with federal law when it approved the settlement agreement. The fact that another district judge subsequently concluded otherwise does not somehow undo that implicit determination."

In response, Sooknanan refused to pause her ruling. Instead, she ordered the government to use the system for those four states.

She also criticized DHS for not informing her of the Florida settlement and effectively using it as a workaround.

The government has appealed Sooknanan's order.

Proof of Citizenship

Chief District Judge Denise J. Casper ruled on June 24 that the president's order requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration didn't stand up under the law either.

Like Talwani, Casper said the Constitution didn't give the president control over elections.

Casper ruled the requirement might impose a "significant barrier for otherwise eligible voters, and that sections of the executive order are unconstitutional.

"On the other hand," she wrote, "there is no evidence in this record of widespread 'illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error' within American elections, which the Executive Order purports to safeguard against."

States Refuse to Hand Over Voter Rolls

The DOJ is also currently engaged in multiple legal battles to obtain unredacted voter lists from states. In April, it announced a suit against Idaho, the 30th state to face such legal action.

The DOJ had invoked Title III of Civil Rights Act to obtain the voter rolls, and inspect them for improperly registered voters.

That statute says state election officials have to hold onto any records that "come into" their possession for 22 months. Those records have to be turned over the U.S. Attorney General, and "made available for inspection," if the AG makes the demand in writing, and specifies "the basis and the purpose" of the request.

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that the statute didn't apply because Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had compiled the voter rolls herself via her staff - they had not "come into" her possession.

The majority also found that the DOJ stated a "basis and purpose" for the request, but it did not state them in a single letter.

The DOJ requested an en banc rehearing, meaning before the entire Sixth Circuit, of the case.