Democratic states are taking the fight against Trump’s sweeping effort aimed at restricting mail-in voting back to court. A coalition of blue states says the new United States Postal Service rule, which limits who may receive mail ballots, is unconstitutional and will upend mail voting for tens of millions of voters ahead of the midterms.
In a new lawsuit against USPS filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the states allege, “The Rule violates the Constitution and federal statutes many times over.”
According to the lawsuit, the new rule displaces state laws, creates new USPS functions and ballot constraints that are inconsistent with the USPS’s governing statutes, flouts USPS procedural requirements, violates the Privacy Act, and cannot be reconciled with federal voting rights law.
“Each of these defects would alone establish the Rule’s unlawfulness,” the complaint says. “Together, they demonstrate USPS’s utter disregard for the law in carrying out the President’s policy preferences.”
The states are asking a federal judge to declare the new USPS rule unlawful and block the government from implementing it.
Judges have repeatedly blocked key provisions of the order, finding they unconstitutionally infringe on the states’ authority to administer elections.
The executive order seeks to restrict mail-in voting in three key ways. First, it orders the Department of Homeland Security to create and send citizenship lists of eligible voters for each state. Second, it orders the Attorney General prioritize investigations and potential prosecutions of state and local officials who distribute ballots to ineligible voters.
Lastly, it directs the USPS to only deliver ballots to eligible voters on those citizenship lists.
The new legal challenge comes just two days after the Supreme Court lifted an injunction in a similar case brought by the same coalition of states. On Monday, the Court ruled that U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani had granted that injunction prematurely before the federal government had taken tangible steps to implement the executive order. The Court’s ruling marked a procedural win for the president.
In the unsigned order the Court did not rule on the legality of the executive order itself. “On that score, time will tell,” the order says.
For now, the Court’s ruling will have some impact on the midterm elections. By lifting the injunction, the Court allowed the Trump administration to begin taking steps to compile citizenship lists of eligible voters.
But the Trump administration remains barred from implementing the executive order in its entirety. Another injunction also issued by Talwani in a related case brought by a coalition of voting rights groups is still in effect. That injunction continues to block the USPS from only sending mail ballots to eligible voters on the citizenship list.
The Trump administration has asked Talwani to reconsider that injunction in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, but she has not yet responded.
The issue of the USPS final rule was raised earlier this week in the related case brought by voting rights groups. They argued the Trump administration had violated Talwani’s injunction by publishing this regulation. They filed an emergency motion to enforce her order. Talwani found the government violated her order, but did not impose any remedy.
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