This week at Democracy Docket: Judges are rejecting Trump’s anti-voting crusade

President Donald Trump’s anti-voting agenda had already hit some major legal roadblocks over the last year. But this may have been its worst week yet in the courts.

It started on Monday when, Jim Saksa reported, a federal judge blocked the administration from using a flawed Department of Homeland Security database to help purge voters. Jim followed up with the sadly predictable news that several GOP members of Congress joined Elon Musk in responding to the ruling by issuing xenophobic attacks against the judge, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago.

Two days later, Yunior Rivas added, another federal judge permanently blocked key parts of Trump’s 2025 anti-voting executive order — which already had been on hold since last year — finding that it exceeded the president’s authority. 

The same day, Yunior explained, we got the first ruling by an appeals court on the Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuits demanding the unredacted voter rolls of 30 states. It, too, was a loss for Trump, with the panel of 6th Circuit judges rejecting DOJ’s claim that federal law entitles it to Michigan’s rolls. It comes as all ten lower courts that so far have issued decisions on the lawsuits — the latest on Sunday in Pennsylvania’s case  — have likewise ruled against the administration. 

But perhaps the most important of this week’s pro-voting rulings came Thursday, when, as Jacob Knutson reported, a judge blocked the government from implementing Trump’s March executive order that aimed to crack down on mail voting. 

The decision could hardly have been more timely — it came just a day after the Postmaster General alarmingly told lawmakers that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) wouldn’t deliver mail ballots in states that don’t first submit a list of would-be mail voters to be checked against government records, as Trump’s order envisions. One USPS advocate told Jacob that the plan, by turning the nonpartisan agency into a political tool of the administration, “will destroy the Postal Service.”

Indeed, Jim explained why, despite Thursday’s crucial ruling, voting rights advocates — aware of this administration’s record of finding ways around, or flat-out ignoring, court orders — aren’t declaring victory just yet. 

And of course, we got plenty of other signals this week that Trump is still determined to interfere with voting this fall. A Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in California announced this month that he’s investigating the state’s recent primary — which Republicans have claimed was crooked because they didn’t like the results. As Jacob reported Tuesday, Trump told a crowd at a rally this week that he had personally called the U.S. attorney to demand the probe. 

Meanwhile, Matt Cohen reported that far-right figures including Steve Bannon are warning that if Democrats win control of Congress, they’ll impeach Trump and Vice President JD Vance, assassinate MAGA supporters, and turn America communist. They’re summoning this “nightmare” scenario to bolster their ongoing push for an election takeover, perhaps to include a declaration of martial law.

It’s a reminder that, even when the courts stand up for voters, we can’t ever let down our guard in the fight to protect fair elections.