The US Department of Justice filed a request with the Supreme Court on Wednesday asking the justices to stay a ruling issued the previous day by US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, which blocks the US Postal Service from enforcing nationwide the tighter mail-in voting rules established by President Donald Trump's executive order — rules that could affect the November midterm elections determining control of Congress.
Trump Administration Returns to Supreme Court Seeking to Restore Mail-In Ballot Restrictions
The US Department of Justice filed a request with the Supreme Court on Wednesday asking the justices to stay a ruling issued the previous day by US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, which blocks the US Postal Service from enforcing nationwide the tighter mail-in voting rules established by President Donald Trump's executive order — rules that could affect the November midterm elections determining control of Congress.
Trump signed the executive order in March, following years of advocating restrictions on mail-in voting and repeatedly claiming, without substantiation, that his 2020 election defeat resulted from widespread voter fraud.
Talwani's Tuesday ruling arose from a case brought by several voting rights groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. It expands on an earlier order she issued in June that prevented enforcement of the executive order in 23 mostly Democratic-governed states and Washington, DC, which had separately challenged the action as unconstitutional.
The administration had already asked the Supreme Court to pause that June order. In its Wednesday filing, the Justice Department urged the court to lift that earlier decision and clarify that its ruling also covers Talwani's Tuesday order.
Trump's executive order directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile and transmit to states a list of US citizens eligible to vote, required the Justice Department to prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local election officials who issue ballots to people deemed ineligible, and mandated the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state's approved mail-in ballot list. The Postal Service had recently moved to implement the directive.
In her Tuesday ruling, Talwani wrote that the executive branch has no constitutional authority to regulate elections, a responsibility she said the US Constitution assigns to individual states.
- The Supreme Court has not yet responded to either application; its position or likely timeline is not established.
- The specific legal arguments made by the 23 states and Washington, DC, in the earlier challenge are not detailed.
- The extent to which the Postal Service has already implemented the directive and any operational effects are not specified.
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Read the original at The Guardian US