A federal judge in Boston ruled that Democratic-led states and voting rights groups could proceed with lawsuits challenging Donald Trump's executive order that seeks to restrict vote-by-mail ahead of November's midterm elections. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
US district judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Barack Obama, ruled that the potential for Trump's order to impact the midterm elections meant the plaintiffs' cases could not wait to be heard. Trump's order "both includes multiple specific directives as to certain actions that federal agencies must take at specified times and requires that definite 'substantive outcomes' be implemented that will affect the upcoming election," she wrote.
The ruling could open the door to the judge blocking the order from being implemented ahead of the midterm elections. Officials from 23 Democratic states and the District of Columbia sued in April to block Trump's executive order to curb voting by mail, arguing that the order was an unconstitutional effort to interfere with states administering their elections.
The Trump administration, however, is pressing ahead with plans to disrupt votes cast by mail. As the Guardian reported in May, the US Postal Service could throw the upcoming midterm elections into chaos by requiring states to provide lists of voters who received mail ballots, according to a draft rule.
Nearly one in three Americans voted by mail in 2024, but Trump, who wants to restrict the number of voters by limiting ballots cast by mail, signed an executive order in March that prohibits the USPS from delivering ballots to any voters not on a federal list of citizens deemed eligible to vote in each state by the Department of Homeland Security.
The USPS proposal to implement this order seeks to require states to give the postal service the names and barcodes tied to mail-in ballots for federal elections. The public will have 30 days to comment on the proposed rule before the Trump administration can finalize it.
As the Democratic election and voting rights attorney Marc Elias's Democracy Docket reports, the US Postal Service (USPS) filed a notice on Thursday in federal court saying that it has begun the process of creating a new records system to track mail ballots. The records system is tied to USPS' proposed rule stating that it will only deliver mail ballots to voters who are registered with the federal government.
The public comment period on the proposed rule is open until 2 July, and more than 14,000 comments have been submitted by members of the progressive activist group MoveOn. One public comment submitted by a MoveOn member reads: "The USPS proposed rule to block mail ballots is outrageous. Many of us choose to vote by mail, either because it is the most convenient or accessible option or, for some Americans, it is the only option. This proposed rule is in violation of each state's constitutional right and authority to govern election matters. The executive branch of the federal government and its agencies have no role in how a state runs its election proceedings. One in three Americans voted by mail in the last election. It is clear to any thinking person that this is another of Trump's attempts to control – if not hijack – future federal elections by interfering with legitimate registered voters' right to vote. USPS's job is to deliver mail, not decide who gets a ballot."