Postal Service from enacting President Trump’s sweeping new mail ballot rules for the November election, finding that the Postal Service lacks such authority over elections and that neither it nor states such as California are capable of implementing the changes without causing chaos and disenfranchising voters. District Judge Indira Talwani noted that election officials from across the country told the court that it is “likely impossible” to comply with the rules, which “makes disenfranchisement more than likely, if not probable” if the Postal Service were to proceed with them. Talwani’s order — her latest of several halting the plan since this summer — came after a Postal Service whistleblower alleged the agency’s new computer systems for the project are fundamentally flawed; a top Postal Service official acknowledged a key online portal was unfinished; and the Trump administration filed an emergency petition asking the U.S.
Supreme Court to allow the plans to proceed anyway. All this unfolded this week as some of the first mail ballots of the election cycle started going out. The new rules — which Trump required in a March executive order — would require states to submit complete voter lists to the Postal Service and to adopt new ballot envelopes with individualized voter bar codes designed by the Postal Service, and empower the Postal Service to reject any mail ballots that don’t match those lists.
Trump’s executive order also required the Department of Homeland Security to develop its own lists of eligible citizen voters, ostensibly to be compared against the state lists. Trump has said the changes are necessary to combat widespread voter fraud, including by non-citizens, though independent election experts say there is no evidence that such fraud exists in large numbers. Leading Democrats and elections officials in California and other states say the new rules constitute an unlawful federal overreach into state-run elections and a thinly veiled effort by the Trump administration to suppress the vote in a midterm election the GOP is poised to lose.
Talwani, an appointee of President Obama, agreed, finding that the states and voting rights groups are likely to succeed in their claims that the U.S. Constitution reserves the right to regulate elections to the states and Congress — not the executive branch. Talwani issued her order after holding a contentious hearing in federal court in Boston on Thursday, where she questioned the Postal Service and the dozen conservative-led states supporting it on their ability to implement the changes in time for the Nov. 3 elections.
She also heard from California, other liberal-led states and voting rights groups that it would be impossible. Rob Bonta, whose office is helping lead the states’ challenge, hailed Talwani’s order as a crucial reprieve. Walter Garcia, a Bonta spokesman, said the Justice Department had “flouted standard procedural rules” by approaching the high court before the lower courts had weighed in, despite the fact that the Postal Service acknowledged Thursday that it was not ready to launch its new portal.
Supreme Court when USPS is unprepared to implement the rule now,” Garcia said. State law requires that all registered voters be sent a ballot in the mail, and more than 80% of California voters have used those ballots to vote in recent elections. In its emergency petition to the Supreme Court, the Trump administration argued that an earlier temporary restraining order by Talwani to halt the new rules from taking effect was “baseless” and would cause “serious irreparable harm” to the federal government, states and voting public.
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