The U.S. Postal Service has stopped building a new computer system that would have changed how mail-in ballots are handled this election. President Donald Trump ordered the new system, but the Supreme Court blocked the rules behind it this week.
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Postmaster General David Steiner told The Associated Press on Thursday work stopped once the court ruling came down.
“There’s an injunction so we’re not doing anything,” Steiner said.
About the system
Trump’s executive order called for federal agencies to build state citizenship lists and send them into a new Postal Service portal. Mail ballots could then be sent only to voters cleared through the system.
But earlier this month, a whistleblower report said the system wouldn’t be ready for the midterm elections and was plagued by technical problems.
Steiner disputes that assessment. He said that while the Postal Service faced challenges building such a large system so quickly, he was confident it would have been ready around Sept. 15.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that we worked fast,” Steiner said. “My personal opinion is it was a monumental task and I’m very proud of our IT department for being able to do it that fast.”
For this election, however, Steiner says it’s back to “business as usual.”
Steiner’s stance
Steiner told AP he wouldn’t take a position on Trump’s order, saying he leads an “independent agency of the executive branch” and his job is to implement the rules the Postal Service is given.
“I don’t get to decide what rules that are put on us that I decide to accept or not accept,” he said.
Trump’s order would also have required unique barcodes on outbound and return mail-ballot envelopes. States would have had to submit voters’ names, addresses and corresponding barcodes to the online “Federal Mail Ballot Portal.” Election officials argued the changes could not be implemented in time for November’s midterms.
Although the Supreme Court blocked the new mail-ballot rules for this year’s election, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately that the administration could ultimately prevail if the legal fight returns to the court.
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