Election Rules Ripped From White House

Voting booths with American flags and VOTE signs. — ELECTION RULES BLOCKED

A federal judge just told the President of the United States he has no power over who gets to register to vote — and that ruling may matter far more than any bill Congress has debated.

Quick Take

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly permanently blocked President Trump’s executive order requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ruling the President lacks that authority.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act passed the House but died in the Senate 48-50, with four Republicans joining all Democrats to kill it.
Supporters say the requirement stops noncitizens from voting; critics and courts say noncitizen voting is already extremely rare and the fix creates bigger problems than it solves.
The ruling draws a hard constitutional line: election rules belong to states and Congress, not the White House.

A Judge Draws a Line the President Cannot Cross

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a permanent injunction blocking Trump’s executive order that would have required proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form.

Her ruling was direct: “Since our Constitution delegates the responsibility for election regulation to the States and Congress, this Court finds that the President does not possess the authority to mandate such changes.” The court also permanently barred the U.S. Election Assistance Commission from moving forward with the requirement.^[13]

BREAKING: A federal judge has permanently blocked the Trump administration from enforcing an executive order signed last year that required proof of citizenship to register to vote and demanded mail-in ballots be received by Election Day. https://t.co/I78dhdVBvz

— ABC News (@ABC) June 24, 2026

This is not a close legal call. The Constitution is clear that Congress writes election rules, and states run them. A President cannot bypass both with an executive order. Whatever you think about voter ID policy, the judge’s constitutional reasoning is hard to argue with. The SAVE Act’s supporters actually understood this, which is why they tried to pass it through Congress in the first place.

The SAVE Act Had Its Moment and Came Up Short

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would have required every American to show a passport, birth certificate, or similar document when registering to vote. It passed the House and became a centerpiece of the election integrity debate.^[3]

But in the Senate, it failed 48-50, short of even a simple majority — let alone the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.^[1]^[2] Four Republicans crossed party lines to vote against it: Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, and Thom Tillis.

Senator Collins said she could support a one-time proof of citizenship requirement at registration, but not a rule requiring it every time a voter updates their address or changes their name.^[10] That distinction matters.

Requiring documents every time someone moves or gets married creates a real burden for millions of legal voters, particularly the roughly 69 million American women whose birth certificates may not match their current legal names.

The Fraud Argument Is Loud but Thin on Evidence

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana made the case for the bill bluntly during a late-night Senate debate: “We do not want to leave this amount of power sitting on the table so that foreign powers can send forth people who are not eligible to vote in this country and vote anyway.”^[7]

That argument resonates emotionally. But the factual foundation underneath it is weak. Noncitizen voting is already a federal crime. Registrants must swear under penalty of perjury that they are eligible. And repeated studies show noncitizen voting is extremely rare, with most cases being honest mistakes, not organized fraud.^[5]

The main Republicans who have actively opposed or blocked key attempts to advance the SAVE America Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) in 2026 are:

• Susan Collins (R-ME)
• Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
• Thom Tillis (R-NC)
• Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

— Awake (@Steve1536497023) June 25, 2026

Supporters also point to polls showing 75 to 90 percent of Americans support some form of voter ID across party and racial lines. That is real public sentiment and should not be dismissed.

But polling support for “voter ID” broadly is not the same as support for requiring an original birth certificate or a $130 passport every time someone registers. Those are very different asks, and the details matter enormously when you are talking about millions of eligible voters who may not have those documents on hand.^[25]

What Both Sides Are Getting Wrong

The left’s reflexive cry of “Jim Crow 2.0” is overblown and shuts down a legitimate conversation about election security. Every serious democracy verifies voter eligibility somehow. The desire to confirm that only citizens vote is not inherently sinister.

At the same time, the right’s insistence that this is an urgent crisis lacks the documented, verified evidence of systemic noncitizen fraud that would justify blocking millions of legal citizens from the polls. Anecdotes are not audits.

The more honest debate is about design. A well-crafted, one-time citizenship verification at first registration — with reasonable alternatives for people who lack a passport — is a very different policy from a recurring document hurdle.

The SAVE Act as written did not make that distinction cleanly enough, which is part of why it lost Republican votes it needed. Election integrity is a worthy goal. The path to it runs through Congress and careful legislation, not executive orders that courts will strike down before the ink dries.^[14]