The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to remove a temporary restraining order that currently prevents the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing new rules on mail ballots for the midterm elections. The request follows an executive order issued earlier this year aimed at tightening oversight of voting by mail.
A federal judge in Boston imposed the block on key portions of the USPS plan, which stems from directives to the agency regarding ballot handling. The order remains in place while litigation continues over whether the Postal Service can impose these conditions.
The August revision to federal ballot mail rules would require state election offices to submit names and addresses of voters requesting mail ballots and to apply specific barcodes to the envelopes. Without compliance, USPS has indicated it would not deliver the ballots to recipients.
North Carolina must begin sending absentee ballots on Friday, starting the process for this year's midterms. Other states are expected to follow with their own mail ballot distributions later in the month.
Voting experts have cautioned that the timeline leaves little room for the new system to operate smoothly and could lead to widespread delivery problems. A whistleblower report has highlighted insufficient testing of the online portal for voter information and a verification method that risks ballots arriving too late or not at all.
The plan was developed in response to concerns about non-citizen voting raised in the March executive order, although multiple studies have found such cases to be very rare. Opponents argue the Postal Service exceeds its authority by attempting to regulate aspects of the voting process.
The Supreme Court issued a procedural ruling in one of the related cases in August but has not yet addressed the underlying legality of the executive order or the USPS requirements, according to LAist.
This report is based on coverage by LAist: https://laist.com/news/politics/trump-asks-supreme-court-to-lift-block-on-usps-plan-to-restrict-mail-voting