Judge Blocks Plan To Make Mail Ballots Earn Delivery
A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s mail-voting executive order for 14 days Thursday, interrupting the nation’s cherished tradition of allowing postal administrators to determine whether citizens have completed enough paperwork to qualify for mail delivery. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued the temporary order after the Postal Service finalized requirements directing states to redesign ballot envelopes, upload lists of intended absentee voters, adopt a new federal portal and complete the overhaul shortly before November’s midterm elections. Talwani cited the limited time and expense involved, rejecting the foundational democratic principle that every election system must be rebuilt whenever Washington discovers a barcode.
Trump condemned the ruling as a radical effort to let eligible voters use election procedures established before that morning. “We had the most secure plan ever created, because the Post Office would know every voter, every envelope and probably every stamp,” Trump said. “Without my beautiful federal lists, people could mail birthday cards, electric bills or even ballots, and nobody would know which piece of mail becomes president.” Administration officials said the requirements would protect election integrity by ensuring that no ballot entered the postal system without first surviving an obstacle course of databases, formatting rules and web portals unavailable when the Constitution recklessly assigned election administration to states and Congress.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority had allowed the administration to proceed Monday on procedural grounds without deciding whether the order was legal. Talwani then lifted an earlier injunction before imposing the temporary restraining order after states and voting-rights groups sued again once the Postal Service published its final requirements. The sequence leaves Americans facing the dangerous possibility that mail ballots could be handled like ordinary mail, rather than detained until state officials demonstrate that each envelope has achieved federal aesthetic compliance. A hearing is scheduled for September 3, when the court will consider whether election rules may be rewritten weeks before voting begins. Until then, the nation remains burdened by the obsolete notion that the Postal Service should deliver properly addressed mail.
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