Court Curtails Presidential Right To Screen American Envelopes

A federal appeals court ruled Saturday that presidents may not personally redesign national elections whenever the electorate appears insufficiently appreciative, dealing a major setback to the executive branch’s traditional authority over envelopes it dislikes. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s injunction blocking key provisions of President Donald Trump’s March election order, which sought federal citizenship checks and tighter controls on mail ballots. The decision temporarily preserves the obsolete constitutional arrangement under which states administer elections instead of submitting every voter, signature and return address for presidential approval.

Trump condemned the ruling as a dangerous expansion of judicial power into an area long understood to belong to whichever candidate currently controls the Justice Department. “Nobody understands mail like I do, and these judges are saying the president cannot decide which envelopes are American envelopes, which is election interference at a level nobody has ever seen,” Trump said. Administration officials explained that the order merely asked the Postal Service to supplement its routine delivery duties by identifying suspicious voters, interpreting state election codes and determining whether each recipient had demonstrated sufficient gratitude to the commander in chief.

The ruling means local election officials may continue following laws enacted by state legislatures rather than urgently consulting the newest federal spreadsheet. California Attorney General Rob Bonta welcomed the decision, recklessly endorsing the theory that a lawful ballot should not disappear because a voter’s name was abbreviated, outdated, duplicated, misspelled or aesthetically disappointing to Washington. Legal experts warned that the court’s reasoning could restore the premodern notion that executive orders cannot amend the Constitution simply by using more confident fonts.

The Justice Department said it was reviewing its options, including an appeal to the Supreme Court and a possible finding that postage stamps constitute interstate election fraud. Until then, Americans face the grave prospect that letter carriers will deliver election mail without first serving as roaming citizenship tribunals. The ruling ignores the nation’s clearest democratic principle: A president who won an election is consequently entitled to redesign the next one.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.