WASHINGTON, United States: The Trump administration took its mail-in ballot fight to the US Supreme Court on Thursday. It sought to revive a USPS rule that would tighten ballot-mail requirements before the November 3 midterm elections.
The US Department of Justice asked the court to suspend an order from US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston that temporarily barred the US Postal Service from enforcing the new requirements.
The USPS rule requires states to provide lists of mail-ballot recipients and use federally approved outbound and return envelopes carrying unique markings and barcodes.
The Postal Service could decline to transmit ballots that fail to meet the requirements or involve voters absent from the submitted lists.
Talwani issued a 14-day temporary order on August 27 after finding that the rule was likely to conflict with the US Constitution’s allocation of election administration authority to states.
She also cited the difficulty of implementing the requirements so close to the midterms. However, the Justice Department appealed to the First US Circuit Court of Appeals. It then moved to the Supreme Court before that court acted. Solicitor General D.
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John Sauer asked the justices to allow enforcement while the litigation continues. The dispute has already reached the Supreme Court once.
On August 24, the justices lifted an earlier injunction against President Donald Trump’s executive order without resolving the legality of the resulting USPS rule.
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The Supreme Court docket lists the new case as United States Postal Service, et al. v. California, et al., No. 26A297. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson requested responses by 10 a.m. EDT on September 8.
