MASSACHUSETTS — Anna Baldwin, Director of Voting Rights Litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, described the collaboration between the organizations. "The CLC and the DDF have worked closely together on two ongoing lawsuits challenging the president’s unlawful voting executive orders that attempt to dictate election rules," Baldwin said.

Baldwin added that the groups coordinated efforts at the highest judicial level. "We’ve teamed up in the supreme court on a brief filed by former state and federal judges, including noted conservative judges, that emphasized just how unlawful and dangerous the president’s efforts to dictate election rules are," she said.

The Democracy Defenders Fund and the Campaign Legal Center filed lawsuits against Trump’s 2025 and 2026 executive orders on voting. The Democracy Defenders Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other groups have filed legal challenges to Donald Trump’s executive orders on voting. The Brennan Center for Justice, Democracy Forward, the Democratic Attorneys General Association, and the Washington Litigation Group have accelerated legal challenges to Trump’s executive actions. About 50 million Americans, the majority of whom are Democrats, vote by mail.

The Trump administration has lost 23 of the cases where rulings have been made regarding voter data seizures. In July, Donald Trump gave a televised speech in which he portrayed the nation’s voting system as riddled with fraud and condemned voting by mail and non-citizen voting. Trump charged that non-citizen voting poses a crisis of election security.

A database from the Heritage Foundation cites 100 cases of non-citizen voting over a quarter-century. Donald Trump voted twice by mail this year.

Why It Matters

The permanent injunction blocks an executive order that could have altered mail voting procedures for approximately 50 million Americans ahead of the election. The ruling shows the ongoing legal disputes between the executive branch and voting rights organizations regarding election administration and fraud claims.

The case represents one of many challenges to the administration's voting policies, with the Trump administration losing 23 cases involving voter data seizures. The involvement of multiple legal groups, including the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice, indicates a broad coalition opposing the executive orders.

Timeline

In August, the Democracy Defenders Fund and the Campaign Legal Center filed a brief on behalf of voting rights groups and local officials in two states to block Trump’s March 2026 executive order restricting mail voting. Federal judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts issued a temporary 14-day restraining order in late August.

Judge Indira Talwani wrote that the record includes no evidence relating to fraudulent mail voting to support the rushed implementation. On September 4, Judge Indira Talwani made the injunction permanent, stating that implementing the order close to the election threatens disenfranchisement of millions of citizens who seek to vote by mail. John Sauer claimed in his appeal that the USPS rule does not seize control of states’ administration of elections but simply imposes reasonable preparation requirements for certain election-related mail.

What's New

Research titled "‘Let the people judge me’: how Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage learned a potent populist tactic from Donald Trump" was published in 2026. The Campaign Legal Center is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization which advocates for voting rights, campaign finance reform, government ethics, and fair representation. Indira Talwani is an American federal judge born in 1960.