The United States Postal Service (USPS) on Friday issued a 95-page final rule that it plans to implement immediately if the government obtains relief from two existing injunctions. It would require USPS employees to verify that outbound federal ballot mailings comply with new envelope, barcode, and data-reporting requirements before accepting them from election officials. The rule was designed to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order from March 31.
It directs the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Social Security Administration, to compile and send lists of adult citizens in each state. Separately, it directs USPS to establish state-specific lists of people to whom election officials intend to send mail-in or absentee ballots, along with unique ballot-envelope identifiers. A pair of court orders blocks the rule from implementing the rule before midterm elections in November.
Read More: Trump’s Order Restricting Mail-In Voting Rebuked by States Two injunctions bar USPS from implementing its new rule. They were issued by Massachusetts U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani on June 25 and Aug. 11.
A coalition of 23 states, along with the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit on April 3 seeking to block Trump’s executive order, arguing that the President does not have the authority to dictate state voting practices. In June, the presiding judge granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, finding two sections of the order unlawful and constitutionally invalid. It barred federal agencies from implementing those sections against plaintiff states and D.C. for elections held on or before Nov. 3.
It also blocked USPS from refusing to transmit ballots based on whether voters appeared on the new state-specific lists. Voting-rights groups brought a separate lawsuit against the Trump Administration on April 2, claiming the executive order was unconstitutional, “dangerous,” and could disenfranchise eligible voters. It resulted in the August injunction, which bars USPS from implementing, enforcing, or giving effect to the executive order’s mail-voting provisions for any elections ahead of or on Nov. 3.
It also prohibits USPS from completing the specified rulemaking for those elections. Talwani wrote that the executive order was “causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy.” She also concluded that “the executive branch has no authority to regulate elections.” Critics of the executive order have echoed that concern, saying that the Trump Administration is looking to force federal oversight on elections even though the duty is enshrined to states and Congress in the Constitution. McNulty argues that the rule would shift postal workers “from neutral transporters of a state-led process to a federal gatekeeper of states’ outbound mail ballots.” However, the USPS has asserted in the final rule that the requirements “do not amount to election administration, nor do they usurp state resources.” “Rather, they regulate the use of the mail to improve operational efficiency and support the faithful execution of federal law,” it says within the rule.
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