A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday again temporarily blocked a key provision of President Trump’s effort to restrict mail-in voting. The new ruling comes just one day after she lifted a similar injunction — the last remaining roadblock to Trump’s initiative — following pressure from the Supreme Court’s ruling that lifted a similar block on Monday.
A group of Democratic states and a separate coalition of voting rights groups filed new legal challenges on Wednesday, specifically targeting the new United States Postal Service rule that implements a key provision of Trump’s mail-in ballot executive order. That rule directs USPS to only deliver mail-in ballots to eligible voters on federal citizenship lists.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked several key provisions of the USPS rule for 14 days.
In her 11-page order, Talwani said the record lacks any evidence of fraudulent mail-in voting. “The USPS’s interest in correcting an unsubstantiated problem through likely unconstitutional means is dwarfed by the overwhelming risk of pervasive disenfranchisement of citizens who need access to mail ballots in order to vote,” she wrote.
Talwani will hold a hearing on September 3 to consider a longer-term block on the effort, which is one day before the earliest state deadline to send mail-in ballots to military and overseas voters.
The voting rights groups that brought one of the legal challenges argue the initiative is unconstitutional.
“The Order and the Rule usurp the authority of the states and Congress to regulate elections and undermine the USPS’s role as a neutral, nondiscriminatory mail carrier,” they write in a brief. “The Constitution, Congress’ comprehensive statutory scheme, reams of caselaw, and longstanding practice all cement one conclusion: neither the President nor the USPS can require states to overhaul their mail voting system and refuse to carry election mail.”
The government argued the new rule is legal, saying it merely proposes improvements and modernization to the USPS’s infrastructure for handling mail ballots. “It creates standardized design and review requirements for federal ballot envelopes that have long been recommended by the Postal Service, and some of which are already in use in many States,” they said in a filing on Thursday.
“The Rule does not displace a single State election law,” the government added. “And it need not and should not prevent a single voter from voting by mail.”
But time is running out, for both the order’s challengers and the federal government, as the November elections loom.
Questions remain over whether, if the block is lifted, the states could even implement the required provisions of the executive order in time. With the first mail ballot deadline set for next week, it will be virtually impossible for states to comply with Trump’s order.
For now, the legal challenges have been more of a tennis rally, with each decision lobbing confusion into the elections that are only two months away. In an apparent effort to combat that confusion, USPS published a list of frequently asked questions about the new rule on Thursday.
Still, the blue states that brought the lawsuits warn of the consequences.
“The public’s inevitable confusion about the Rule’s new regime and mail voting rules will damage the public’s trust in States to administer elections fairly and in accordance with state law,” the states wrote in a brief.
“Disenfranchisement of voters due to errors and flaws in the new processes will compound the harm to States’ reputations as stewards of elections.”
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