A US judge declined to immediately block President Donald Trump's executive order tightening rules on mail-in voting.
According to Reuters, the judge on Thursday, May 28, rejected the request to block Trump’s mail-in voting orders but left the door open for the Democratic Party to challenge it again after the administration takes further steps to implement the measure.
Washington-based US District Judge Carl Nichols' order did not address whether Trump's March 31 order was lawful.
Trump's Republicans are in a tight battle to keep control of both houses of the US Congress in the November midterm elections.
Trump's executive order directed his administration to compile a list of confirmed US citizens eligible to vote in each state.
The order also directed the administration to use federal data to help state election officials verify who is eligible to vote, required the US Postal Service to only deliver ballots to voters on each state's approved mail-in ballot list, and required states to preserve election-related records for five years.
Plaintiffs, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, argued the executive order on mail-in ballots could disenfranchise millions of voters.
But Nichols wrote that the Democrats' request for a preliminary injunction blocking the measure was premature.
Nichols, who was appointed by Trump during his first term wrote, "Given that the Executive Order does not command Plaintiffs to do anything, and that no agency has yet acted pursuant to the Order in a way that could harm Plaintiffs, they have not suffered any harm at present."
Trump has for years pushed the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud and has criticized voting by mail. Despite blasting mail-in ballots as "cheating," Trump cast his own vote by mail in March in a Florida special election and used an absentee ballot to vote in the 2018 midterms.
