The Trump administration on Sunday again asked the Supreme Court to allow new Postal Service rules for mail ballots to take effect. The Associated Press reported the administration says a federal judge’s order blocking them threatens to sow confusion as states begin sending ballots for November’s midterm elections.
In an emergency filing, Solicitor General John Sauer urged the justices to issue an immediate administrative stay of U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s order, followed by a fuller stay while the administration’s appeal proceeds. Sauer said ballots have already begun to be mailed in North Carolina and that more states are preparing to follow, including Alabama on Sept. 9 and at least five states the week of Sept. 13.
Download the Straight Arrow app today to get the stories that matter free from manipulation, bias or agenda.™
Point phone camera here
“Once those ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them,” Sauer wrote. According to the AP, he said each day the injunction remains in place “risks sowing confusion and chaos” because election officials and the Postal Service may continue preparatory work only voluntarily, rather than under mandatory federal rules.
As Straight Arrow first reported on Friday, Talwani issued an injunction barring enforcement of the rules for the midterms while lawsuits continue. In her order, she said Congress had not delegated its Elections Clause power to the Postal Service and that the final rule conflicted with the statutory framework governing elections.
The dispute stems from President Donald Trump’s March executive order directing changes to mail voting procedures. The Postal Service rule would require states to use agency-approved ballot envelopes and provide voter information that could be matched to mailed ballots. Ballots that did not comply could be rejected or not delivered.
Democratic-led states, the District of Columbia and voting rights groups challenged the order, arguing it unlawfully intrudes on states’ authority to administer elections and could disrupt voting shortly before ballots go out. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, whose office is part of the coalition, said Friday that the order blocks “burdensome requirements on mail voting” while the case continues.
The administration and several Republican-led states say the rules are lawful and aimed at protecting election integrity. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, whose state joined a brief supporting the administration, said in a July statement that states need assurance that national elections are secure beyond their own borders.
The Supreme Court has already allowed parts of Trump’s plan to move forward, but it has not ruled on the legality of the executive order. The administration’s Sunday filing marks another attempt to secure high court intervention as election deadlines close in.
Round out your reading
- Lawyer says 57 Cornell frat members were in the group chat. Could their silence be a crime?
- Florida county discovers mysterious Flock cameras with no obvious owner.
- Off Script: They won their primaries on one message. Now it’s disappearing.
- Some question whether a popular affordable housing policy is making the nation’s home shortage worse.
- Kelvin wave incoming: Why the US should care.
