A group of Democratic governors asked the U.S. Postal Service on Thursday to withdraw its proposed rule seeking to implement an executive order from President Donald Trump to create a federal list of eligible voters and potentially limit who can receive a ballot in the mail. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The president signed the order in March. It directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to create a "citizenship list" for each state and the Postal Service to limit mailed ballots to those on the lists.
The Postal Service filed a proposed rule to implement the order in late May. Since then, a federal judge has blocked Trump's executive order and barred agencies from implementing it, saying it was unconstitutional because only states and Congress — not the president — have the power to set election rules.
The letter sent Thursday was an effort organized by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and included eight other Democratic governors — from California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. It cited the judge's ruling and asked that the Postal Service withdraw the rule it had proposed to fulfill Trump's order.
"Far from ensuring integrity in federal elections," they wrote in the six-page letter, "the Proposed Rule would undermine trust in elections, needlessly complicate voting processes, arbitrarily disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, and undermine states' constitutional role in ensuring free and fair elections."