A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a lower court's decision to block an executive order issued by President Donald Trump that sought to create a national voter list. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the administration did not follow required administrative procedures when initiating the program, which aimed to aggregate state voter data to identify non-citizens on registration rolls.
The order, titled "Executive Order on Protecting the Integrity of Voting Systems," instructed federal agencies to share data with the Department of Commerce to help states verify the citizenship status of registered voters. Opponents of the measure argued that it could lead to the purging of eligible voters and violated privacy laws. The administration stated the list was necessary to ensure election security and prevent illegal voting by non-citizens.
The appellate panel found that the government failed to conduct a mandated privacy impact assessment before beginning the data collection process. This ruling maintains the preliminary injunction issued by a district judge, effectively halting the implementation of the program while the underlying legal challenge proceeds. The Department of Justice has not yet indicated whether it will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
The ruling reinforces procedural constraints on executive authority, establishing that federal agencies must complete required administrative steps, such as privacy impact assessments, before undertaking large-scale data collection projects. This precedent limits how federal departments can aggregate personal information from state registries and other federal institutions, directly influencing future executive orders related to election administration and administrative data sharing across executive branch agencies.
Moving forward, the preliminary injunction remains active while the underlying lawsuit proceeds in federal district court. The Department of Justice must now decide whether to request an en banc rehearing before the full 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals or petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision. If the federal government appeals to the Supreme Court, any subsequent ruling could permanently define the limits of federal involvement in state voter registration management.