Trump Admin Asks Supreme Court To Unblock New Mail-Ballot Rules Before States Start Mailing

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 3 to allow the government to begin implementing a regulation that tightens rules around mail-in voting.

In the emergency application, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to stay U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's Aug. 27 order that blocks the United States Postal Service (USPS) from enforcing a final rule published Aug. 26.

The rule implements Section 3 of President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14399, which assigns federal agencies a larger role in who receives a mail ballot and how those ballots are processed by the USPS.

Talwani issued a 14-day temporary restraining order that blocked the post office from implementing the parts of Section 3 that required state and local election officials to submit outbound and return mail envelopes for USPS design review, place unique tracking barcodes on those envelopes, and upload voter names, addresses, and barcode data to a new federal portal. Mailings that do not match portal data or that fall short of the envelope standards would not be accepted for delivery.

The judge said in her Aug. 27 ruling that the agency had presented no evidence of fraudulent mail-in voting that would justify the new USPS rule and that the rule itself was likely unlawful and adopted in violation of the U.S. Constitution, which gives states primary authority to administer elections.

"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 said. "The balance of harms and public interest warrants a [temporary restraining order]."

New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Aug. 26 that the postal regulation issued under the executive order will "create confusion, unnecessary costs, and unacceptable risks for voters going into Election Day." She said officials would have to rush to redesign envelopes, obtain federal approval, and develop new list-transmission systems while already preparing to mail ballots.

The short-term freeze was set to expire around Sept. 10 if Talwani declined to extend it. Earlier in the day on Sept. 3, the judge held a hearing on extending the temporary restraining order. Separately, the Trump administration previously filed an appeal of the restraining order that is still pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Sauer said the nation's highest court needs to act urgently.

"Even before September 10, two States - North Carolina and Alabama - will begin sending ballots to voters, the first as soon as September 4. Once those ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them," he said.

The solicitor general also asked the Supreme Court for an immediate administrative stay so the rule can take effect while the justices review the briefs.

The application was directed to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who oversees emergency appeals from Massachusetts, where Talwani is based.

Jackson directed the respondents - including several states and advocacy groups - to file a reply to the application by 10 a.m. on Sept. 8.

On Aug. 24, the Supreme Court lifted an earlier injunction after finding a challenge was premature because the post office had not yet issued a final rule. The high court's ruling allowed Trump - for the time being - to implement his executive order ahead of the November midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

The justices didn't rule on the lawfulness of Trump's executive order, but said the states that sued weren't harmed and therefore shouldn't have received relief from the Massachusetts judge.

In the new application, Sauer said that days after the Supreme Court issued its ruling, the district court "issued an order partially barring implementation of that rule, without meaningfully addressing the rule's contents or providing any meaningful analysis to support its conclusion that the rule was unlawful."

The lower court's "continued prejudgment of the rule is baseless," and a stay should be issued immediately, because "the District Court's errors deal 'a serious setback' to the Executive's 'goals' while this litigation unfolds."

The states "cannot choose to use the federal mails to carry out their elections but then insist that their election-related mail is somehow exempt from the Postal Service's rulemaking authority," Sauer said.

The USPS rule "imposes only modest requirements on the use of the federal postal system - it does not regulate state administration of elections."

Sauer quoted the rule, which says the USPS "will not play any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rolls, or counting ballots."