Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield led a coalition of 22 other attorneys general and one governor in filing a lawsuit on Friday to block President Donald Trump‘s executive order that would give the federal government control over who receives a mail-in ballot, according to The BBC.
Trump signed the order on March 31. It directs the Department of Homeland Security to build verified voter lists using federal data, including Social Security records, and transfer those lists to states. The order also directs the U.S. Postal Service to stop sending ballots to anyone not on a federally approved list, a move the coalition says is unconstitutional and far beyond what a president is allowed to do.
Rayfield didn’t hold back, saying the Postal Service is being turned into something it was never meant to be. “The United States Postal Service has one job: to deliver the mail. President Trump is trying to give it a second one, deciding which Americans get a ballot,” Rayfield said in a press conference, according to the BBC. He added: “Trump has spent years weaponizing federal agencies to prop up his false story that fraud cost him the 2020 election. He votes by mail. Oregonians vote by mail. And Oregon will keep running its own elections.”
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, argues the order violates the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution. Under Article I, Section 4, states and Congress, not the president, hold the power to set the rules for federal elections. The attorneys general say Trump’s order tries to rewrite election law without Congressional approval, something he simply doesn’t have the authority to do.
States warn the order could cause election chaos
One of the biggest concerns raised in the lawsuit is timing. The attorneys general warn the order would force states to completely overhaul their election systems “at a dangerously quick pace, potentially within weeks of primary elections and mere months before the beginning of mail voting for the 2026 general election.” They argue these rushed changes would lead to “confusion, chaos and distrust” and could disenfranchise voters who rely on mail-in systems that have been in place for years.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek backed the lawsuit in a press release, saying: “Today, Oregon is moving to block President Trump’s unconstitutional voter suppression effort. His attack on the fundamental right of every American to vote has nothing to do with election integrity and everything to do with silencing people so he can ultimately influence election results.”
The White House defended the order. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: “Only Democrat politicians and operatives would be upset about lawful efforts to secure American elections and ensure only eligible American citizens are casting ballots. President Trump campaigned on securing our elections and the American people sent him back to the White House to get the job done.”
Mail voting isn’t new, and Trump uses it himself
Mail-in voting has existed in the United States for over a century and was widely used across both Democratic and Republican states until 2020, when Trump began making baseless claims of mass voter fraud tied to mail ballots. Trump himself voted by mail as recently as last month in a Florida special election, a fact the lawsuit highlights.
Oregon has been a pioneer of vote-by-mail since 1998, and the system has historically enjoyed bipartisan support, three Republican secretaries of state managed and defended the program. The state already uses barcodes and signature verification to secure mail-in ballots, features that Trump’s own order calls for. The state’s legislative fiscal office says there have been very few cases of fraud, and none significant enough to change an election outcome.
This isn’t Trump’s first attempt to reshape election rules through executive action. He signed a similar order last year that would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote and mandated that all ballots be received by Election Day. Courts blocked it. His administration has also been asking states for their voter rolls, and Oregon’s initial lawsuit against that request was dismissed, but the fight is far from over.
The coalition behind this lawsuit includes the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, along with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the order “an authoritarian power grab,” saying: “Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and no president has the power to rewrite the rules on his own.” This marks at least the fourth lawsuit filed against the executive order, with the Iran military tensions abroad adding to an already turbulent stretch for the administration.
