Judge rejects Trump administration bid to overturn order blocking new mail voting restrictions
A Massachusetts federal judge on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s request to lift a temporary restraining order blocking the U.S. Postal Service from implementing new restrictions on mail-in voting.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said the 14-day order she issued last week could not be appealed. She added that even if an appeal were possible, the administration would likely fail on the merits because the Postal Service may not have had the authority to issue the new rule and the requirements could be unconstitutional and unlawful.
Talwani also rejected the administration’s argument that the restraining order was issued too close to the Nov. 3 midterm elections. She said that interpretation conflicted with an Aug. 24 Supreme Court ruling, which allowed Trump’s related executive order to proceed on procedural grounds but did not rule on whether the eventual Postal Service regulations were lawful.
The Supreme Court had determined that Trump’s executive order directing the Postal Service to create new mail-voting restrictions could not be challenged until the agency formally issued its rule. After the rule was published Aug. 21, states and voting rights organizations renewed their legal challenges.
Talwani also disputed the Postal Service’s characterization of the new requirements as modest. The rule would require states to make changes to their vote-by-mail systems ahead of the election and obtain federal approval of lists identifying voters who requested mail ballots.
The Trump administration continues to fight the restraining order in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while also seeking a longer-term pause of the rule in Talwani’s court. Republican attorneys general from Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas have joined the federal government’s side of the case.
Opponents of the rule argue that it improperly interferes with states’ authority to administer elections and could prevent some voters who rely on mail ballots from casting their votes.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that mail voting allows election fraud, despite having used mail voting himself. The administration has defended the new requirements as necessary to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, although such voting has been found to be rare.
Trump signed the executive order on March 31, prompting immediate lawsuits from states and voting rights groups. The legal fight intensified after the Supreme Court’s procedural ruling in August, leading challengers to revise and refile their cases after the Postal Service issued its final rule.
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