Judge Denise Casper, a federal district judge in Boston, converted her earlier injunction of Donald Trump's 31 March voting executive order into a permanent block on Wednesday 24 June, ruling that the president has no authority over how states run their elections1. The order had sought to impose a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement and other voting changes by executive fiat. Casper's ruling landed the same day the Sixth Circuit shut the litigation route to detailed voter files.
The executive order had already been largely blocked in the spring, when courts enjoined most of its provisions; Casper's ruling makes that block permanent and removes the order as a fallback. The White House has meanwhile stopped issuing new election-related executive orders, having signed none through the late-April window when its programme first stalled. Election policy has shifted instead into the courts, where The Administration keeps losing, and into Congress, where it is stuck.
