Judge partly blocks Trump order seeking to overhaul US elections

 A federal judge on Thursday blocked parts of President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to impose new rules on U.S. elections, which Democrats and other groups said risked denying eligible citizens the right to vote.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the Trump administration cannot enforce parts of the order requiring federal election officials to assess whether people who are registering to vote are citizens.

She declined, however, to block parts of the order that sought to force states not to count mail-in ballots received after election day.

The ruling came in response to lawsuits by groups including the Democratic National Committee, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the League of Women's Education Fund.

The White House and the U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump has long questioned the U.S. electoral system and continues to falsely claim that his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud. Trump and his Republican allies also have made baseless claims about widespread voting by non-citizens, which is illegal and rarely occurs.