(The Epoch Times)—A district judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing parts of a rule that aims to tighten mail-in voting requirements ahead of the November congressional elections.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston issued a temporary restraining order at the behest of some states and voting rights groups, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Aug. 24 ruling that led to the lifting of earlier injunctions blocking Trump’s plans to ensure only U.S citizens receive and cast ballots.
Thursday’s temporary restraining order, blocking core parts of the rule, was issued in response to two lawsuits. One was filed by a coalition of 23 states, the District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. The second lawsuit was filed by multiple organizations, including the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts.
In her order, Talwani said that the Postal Service’s final rule imposes multiple requirements on states, including complying with envelope design requirements, securing USPS approval for ballot envelope and return envelope designs, and inputting voter information into a USPS-run electronic portal.
The judge said the agency had presented no evidence of fraudulent mail-in voting that would necessitate such a rule, and that the rule was likely unlawful and adopted in violation of the U.S. Constitution, which gives states the 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 wrote. “The balance of harms and public interest warrants a [temporary restraining order].”
The temporary restraining order, effective for 14 days, prevents the enforcement of certain sections of USPS’s final rule for elections before or on Nov. 3.
Sophia Lin Lakin, a lawyer for the voting rights groups at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement that the order “presses pause on an unlawful power grab that would sow chaos and confusion for the millions of voters who depend on mail ballots.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the White House and USPS for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
The Postal Service issued the rule on Aug. 21 to implement an executive order President Donald Trump signed in March. In the order, Trump wrote that the federal government has a duty to maintain public confidence in election outcomes and that additional measures are needed to enhance election integrity through U.S. mail.
“Secure ballot envelope identifiers provide a reliable, auditable mechanism to enforce Federal law without unduly burdening or infringing on the rights of eligible voters,” the president stated in the order. “Unique ballot envelope identifiers, such as bar codes, enable confirmation that only citizens receive and cast ballots, reducing the risk of fraud and protecting the integrity of Federal elections.”
Under the rule, states must supply the agency with lists of mail ballot recipients, and all outbound and return ballot envelopes must bear unique barcodes. The Postal Service, under the rule, may refuse to deliver ballots that do not comply with the new standards or are associated with voters who do not appear on the lists.
All 50 states allow some form of mail-in voting, with 29 allowing voters to request to cast ballots that way without providing a reason and eight conducting their elections entirely by mail.
USPS Postmaster General David Steiner defended the rule when it was first proposed in June, arguing that the agency is simply “[matching] the ballots that a state believes they’re sending out to what actually gets sent out.”
“To me, it’s not a political question; it’s a question of how do we most efficiently and securely move ballots,” Steiner said as he testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee about the proposed rule.
“We’ve been recommending this for many years; all this does is make it a requirement.”
