Earlier this month, the League of Women Voters of Los Alamos (LWV) Board had an opportunity to explain in a Letter to the Editor (link) our practical reasons for opposing requirements that a voter show government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship before casting a vote. We might have added that the attempt to impose that requirement was being pursued in contravention of the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution gives the president no authority to regulate any aspect of elections. It is the states and the legislative branch that decide what election rules shall be, and President Trump’s March 2025 Executive Order calling on the Election Assistance Commission to require proof, recording, and verification of citizenship, among other things, immediately faced legal challenges for executive overreach. In April and in June, two federal judges blocked much of the Order, writing that the states and other parties who had sued to stop it were likely to be able to show that the Order exceeded the President’s authority and risked disenfranchising some of the electorate.

Oct. 31, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia issued a clear 81-page opinion (gov.uscourts.dcd.279032.218.0_1.pdf) finding that the Order violated the Constitutional separation of powers: “The Court pauses to note a conspicuous absence from the legal and historical context thus far provided [regarding elections]….The states have initial authority to regulate elections. Congress has supervisory authority over those regulations. The President does not feature at all.”

The three lawsuits brought by voting rights groups to challenge the Order included the U.S. League of Women Voters Education Fund. There are many other voter suppression efforts to challenge; this week we get to celebrate a victory.

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