By Clarice Feldman
American Thinker
August 17, 2026
We are in the dog days of summer here in Washington, D.C., and things are moving slowly, though not slowly enough for those leftist judges who are getting overruled in cases of extreme importance to their political supporters.
Safeguarding Mail-In Ballots
Everyone who gives it a minute's thought knows how insecure the mail-in balloting process has been. Who was sent the ballot ? Was the recipient eligible to vote ? When did they sign it ? When was it returned ? Countless reports confirm that the process has been rife with fraud.
In an effort to safeguard the process, on March 31, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order No. 14,399, which, in my opinion, may be a more significant measure than the stalled SAVE Act. Bill Shipley has done a fine job explaining the order, the threat it poses to Democrats, and the process of the five cases they and their allies have filed to block implementation of the order.
Summarizing the most significant features of the order:
When federal offices are on the ballot, under Article II of the Constitution, only citizens may vote, and the chief executive is responsible to see that laws, including this one, are not violated. "It is not enough to just prosecute offenders after the elections are over."
The Department of Homeland Security is directed to work with other federal agencies "to create state-by-state lists of U.S. citizens residing in each state who will be eligible to vote in the next general election." Those lists will be sent to the states.
The USPS is to provide by regulation a process by which each state may notify the USPS its intention to use the U.S. mails in conducting its election and deliver to the USPS those persons enrolled in the mail-in balloting system. (The "Participation List.") USPS will not deliver election mail or return to the state a mail-in ballot to or from any person not on this list. USPS will establish ballot-return envelopes for each state with a unique identifier (such as a bar code) which the service can use "to match the election mail with the identifier to a person on the Participation List." An eligible would-be voter not on the list can vote in person. Following the Executive Order, on June 2, 2026, in compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act, the USPC published a notice of rulemaking that allowed for 30 days of public comment. No final rule has been announced.
The USPS has many regulations that dictate to mass-mailers the types of envelopes they can use for certain types of mail. USPS uses all kinds of highly sophisticated optic scanning devices to process an average of more than 35 million pieces of mail every day.
The USPS has a criminal investigation arm - Postal Inspectors - whose job it is to make sure the mail is not used to commit federal and state crimes. It cannot be plausibly argued that the USPS operates beyond its mandate in seeking to prevent election-related crimes.
Rogue Judges Step In
In the meantime, in April, five lawsuits were filed (three in D.C., two in Massachusetts) to enjoin the proposed, yet unannounced regulations.
In D.C., Judge Carl Nichols was assigned the case instead of "a Senior Judge with a long track record of anti-Trump decisions" when the court denied their claim that the cases were "related to election challenges filed in 2025."
Judge Nichols denied the motions for injunctive relief because "the Plaintiffs did not allege any injuries that could be remedied, either actual or imminent stemming from the issuance of the E.O. That was because, by itself the E.O. did nothing. Any potential legal challenges would have to wait until the rule-making process was complete...." The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed Nichols' decision.
The plaintiffs had better luck in Massachusetts, where a notoriously anti-Trump judge Indira Talwani blocked implementation of several of the most important provisions of the E.O.
She enjoined its effect in the 23 states that were plaintiffs, but could not in the 27 states which were not party to that suit.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the DOJ's motion to stay the injunction pending appeal in a 2-1 vote. DOJ has now filed an Application for a Stay with the Supreme Court, and that application remains pending.
In the second case before her, brought by the League of Women Voters, this past week, she enjoined the creation of the Participation Lists and the design of a standard election mail envelope in all 50 states.
Considering the language in the June Supreme Court decision in Watson v. RNC respecting what constituted "election mechanics," Shipley argues persuasively that those mechanics which are within the states' purview do "not extend to the transmittal back and forth of ballots via the mail. USPS is a federal agency over which the states have no say in how it operates - and that should include delivery of election-related mail for the states."
Judge Talwani's original order (based on the same flawed reasoning as her second one this week) has been challenged, and a stay application presently is pending on the Supreme Court's docket. Is the Court waiting to combine both of the cases in which she acted before ruling, or is a decision being held up while a dissenter writes an objection to the outcome ? Shipley concludes, "Either way, we should have an answer from the Court soon." My money is on Talwani being overturned.
In another of the ongoing cases of judges flouting the law, Judge Allison Burroughs ignored the clear language of the Immigration and Nationality Act which states clearly '[t]here is no judicial review of any determination of the [Secretary of Homeland Security] with respect to the designation of a [temporary protected status] designation of a foreign state."As well, she ignored the clear statement by the Supreme Court in Mullin v. Doe, which made manifest that the district courts have no jurisdiction in the grant or rescission of temporary protected status based on non-constitutional claims. If that wasn't a clear enough violation of her role, just days before she granted an administrative stay of the order terminating Somalians' temporary protected status, the court immediately above hers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, reversed similar administrative stays issued by two other federal court judges (Murphy and Saris) in the circuit for immigrants from Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Like too many lower court judges who think their job is to hamstring the Administration's agendas despite what higher courts have ruled, Judge Burroughs overstepped. This time, Congressman Andy Ogles stepped up to the plate and filed a bill of impeachment against Judge Burroughs. Almost immediately, Judge Burroughs reversed herself and found that the challengers had no right to an extension of their temporary status, that the Supreme Court's Mullin ruling controlled, and that ruling foreclosed their theory and her original ruling.
This article was originally published on American Thinker.