A.G. Kris Mayes Rescues Mail-In Voting from Illegal Trump Attack

A federal judge in Massachusetts struck down a Trump executive order that would have empowered the Post Office to decide who gets to vote by mail, handing a win to Attorney General Kris Mayes and 23 other states just months before the November election.

Mayes saved mail-in voting, which 80% of all Arizonans use in elections. It is one of the most popular state programs, which has been in effect for 35 years.

“Millions of Independents, Republicans, and Democrats across Arizona have voted by mail for decades,” said Attorney General Mayes. “Military families vote by mail. Rural Arizonans vote by mail. Tribal members vote by mail.”

“Donald Trump’s executive order targeted all of these voters. But today, the courts affirmed what the Constitution makes clear: states run their elections, not the President. Arizona will never allow the Trump administration to seize control of our elections,” she added.

Trump tried to steal the 2026 election

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled that President Donald Trump exceeded his constitutional authority with key provisions of his March Executive Order, which directed federal agencies to compile “Confirmed Citizen Lists” for verifying voter eligibility and ordered the U.S. Postal Service to restrict which mail ballots it would deliver.

“The Constitution provides that only the States determine voter-eligibility requirements,” Talwani wrote, rejecting arguments from the administration and a dozen Republican-led intervenor states that the president had inherent power to direct the effort. See the 37-page ruling in California v. Donald J. Trump, Civil Action No. 1:26-cv-11581-IT.

The ruling permanently blocks the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, the Commerce Department and the Postal Service from enforcing the citizen-list and mail-ballot provisions for the November election “and any earlier” federal election.

The Executive Order also threatened states and election officials with criminal prosecution and the loss of federal funding if they do not comply with his demands.

The Postal Service faced a July 29 deadline to finalize rules barring delivery of ballots from voters not “enrolled” in a new federal verification system.

Talwani found both schemes unlawful. She said Congress never gave the executive branch authority to build its own national voter database, noting the lists would be riddled with errors since federal records don’t track people’s addresses or name changes. She also found the Postal Service lacked power to police mail voting, and that the administration’s rulemaking timeline ignored a legally required 90-day review by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

The states had argued they were already suffering real harm from the order, noting some had spent millions of dollars on mail ballot envelopes that wouldn’t meet design standards the administration was poised to impose. Talwani agreed, finding the states didn’t have to wait for the rules to take effect to challenge them in court.

Mayes has filed or joined more than 40 legal actions against Donald Trump’s administration, achieving success in roughly 80% of the rulings or interim relief decisions issued so far.

States joining the lawsuit include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, in addition to the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat.

All 50 states allow some form of mail-in or absentee voting. However, the rules differ depending on where you live. Eight states and the District of Columbia automatically send ballots to every registered voter. Twenty-eight states allow any voter to request a ballot without a reason. Meanwhile, fourteen states require a qualifying excuse before they will send one.