A US appeals court on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump’s administration’s bid to implement new US Postal Service (USPS) rules that would tighten mail-in voting requirements ahead of November’s congressional elections.
A three-judge panel of the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston declined to suspend an injunction issued by a lower court judge last week, which has prevented the USPS from enforcing the rules adopted at the direction of the Republican president.
The decision comes as the US Supreme Court considers a similar request from the administration to lift the injunction.
The lower-court order was issued by US District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, after voting rights groups and several Democratic-led states challenged the USPS rules.
In seeking to overturn Talwani’s order, the US Department of Justice argued that the case was based on an unfounded assumption that the USPS intended to take control of federal election administration. It described the new measure as a “modest” mail-related regulation.
The appeals court rejected that argument, saying it focused on the “trees while ignoring the forest”. The judges said the US Constitution gives Congress and the states authority over elections, rather than the executive branch.
The court said it found no error in Talwani’s conclusion that allowing the rules to take effect “will likely result in the disenfranchisement of millions of voters across the country while providing minimal if any gains in combating voter fraud.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat who helped lead the legal challenge, welcomed the ruling, saying it rejected the administration’s latest attempt to disrupt mail voting.
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The USPS referred questions to a statement issued last week by Postmaster General David Steiner, who said the agency had “at all times acted within our legal authority”.
The administration’s appeal remains before the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority. In a rare move, the administration asked the high court to lift the injunction before the 1st Circuit had ruled on its appeal.
New Mail Voting Requirements
The USPS introduced the rules to implement an executive order signed by Trump in March, following his longstanding calls for tighter controls on voting by mail and his false claim that widespread voter fraud caused his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
All 50 US states allow some form of mail voting. Twenty-nine allow voters to request mail ballots without providing a reason, while eight conduct elections entirely by mail.
Under the new rules, states would be required to provide the USPS with lists of mail-ballot recipients, while all outgoing and returned ballot envelopes would have to carry unique barcodes.
The USPS would also be authorised to refuse delivery of ballots that do not meet the new requirements or are linked to voters whose names do not appear on the supplied lists.
Talwani blocked the rules after concluding that they could disenfranchise voters and were likely unlawful, including because they appeared to infringe on the constitutional authority of states to administer elections.
