Judge blocked 'off-the-rails' Trump with order that won't be easy to reverse: legal expert

A judge threw up a serious hurdle to president Donald Trump's executive order that would substantially roll back voting rights.

U.S. District judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly paused the president's March 25 executive order, titled "Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections," instructing the independent Election Assistance Commission to change the national mail voter registration form to require applicants to prove their U.S. citizenship, and former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote on her Substack page that the ruling would be difficult to overturn.

"District judges frequently write detailed opinions like this one when they want to make sure there is a solid basis for the courts of appeals to affirm their decisions and as little room as possible for them to reverse," Vance wrote. "This is a detailed, well justified explanation that will not be easy for an appellate court to dismiss, and it’s not one-sided; it denies some of the relief the plaintiffs requested on technical legal grounds."

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"Judge Kollar-Kotelly starts with the basics, explaining what executive orders can and cannot be used for," Vance added. "A president, she writes, 'cannot make new law or devise new authority for himself — by executive order or otherwise. He may only wield those powers granted to him by Congress or by the Constitution.'"

Trump wanted the EAC to change its forms to require voters to prove their citizenship before registering to vote or updating their registration, but Kollar-Kotelly blocked that provision.

"The reason our elections, which are held in all 50 states and over 3,100 counties, as well as in some territories and for military members and citizens abroad, are not consigned to the control of the president is fairly obvious," Vance wrote. "The decentralization makes it more difficult for a president or his party to manipulate outcomes in national elections. Trump is nothing if not transparent in this regard."

The order would have required voters to present a passport, Real ID, military identification card or other form of government-issued ID proving citizenship, but Vance said millions of Americans don't have those documents readily available.

"So why do it?" Vance wrote. "The only rationale offered, voter fraud, is something that has been proven, over and over, not to be a problem, especially in federal elections. It’s the same tired excuse used to make it more difficult for 'certain' qualified voters to exercise their rights."

The judge pointed out that the Constitution authorizes Congress and the states, and not the president, to regulate federal elections, and Vance said her ruling was a substantial bulwark against Trump's attempts to consolidate power.

"A decision like this should be a foregone conclusion at the end of this case," Vance wrote. "No president should try to usurp the power to control elections, let alone be able to do so. The executive order and the lawsuits challenging it underscore just how off the rails Trump is. Every day, part of the spectacle of Trump is his assumption of the role of an autocrat at the expense of the American presidency. And the risk is that it all becomes somehow normalized."