Judge Emmet Sullivan Blocks USPS Plan Tied to Donald Trump Mail-In Voting Order

A federal judge blocked a proposed restriction on mail-in voting across the US, ruling that a US Postal Service (USPS) plan to deny ballots to voters in states that do not turn over their voter rolls should not proceed.

“A federal judge blocked the US Postal Service from carrying out its plan for President Donald Trump’s mail ballot executive order, finding that the proposal violated a settlement in a 2020 lawsuit against the agency”

CNN

Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US district court for the District of Columbia ruled that the USPS plan should not be enforced, barring the postal service from enforcing an executive order issued by Donald Trump in March that called for sweeping changes to the administration of elections nationwide.

CNN

Sullivan’s decision bars USPS from enforcing an executive order that Trump issued in March and that USPS began implementing through a proposed rule on 2 June requiring states to give the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies access to lists of voters and to adopt new balloting procedures before the mail agency would make deliveries.

The ruling also follows a prior setback for Trump’s plan, after US district judge Indira Talwani blocked the administration’s plan for mail-in voting across 23 states and the District of Columbia.

Sullivan, appointed by Democratic former president Bill Clinton, sided with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which argued the new rule would run afoul of a 2021 legal settlement requiring “extraordinary measures” to ensure timely delivery of ballot mail.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson said the ruling marked “another major blow to Donald Trump’s attempt to rig the election,” adding, “The President is failing, and the people are winning.”

NAACP senior associate general counsel Anthony Ashton said Sullivan’s decision was “a critical step in protecting the rights of voters who rely on the timely delivery of mail-in ballots to participate in our democracy.”

Democracy Docket

Ashton argued that “The proposed USPS changes would have created unnecessary and unlawful barriers,” and Allison Zieve, the director of Public Citizen Litigation Group, said the court recognized USPS’s plan to create “roadblocks to mail-in voting” was inconsistent with its commitment to timely deliver election mail.

The Guardian reported that Sullivan’s decision extended an injunction nationwide, meant to enforce an agreement that bound the postal service as an agency until 2028.

CNN reported that Sullivan wrote the proposed rule would violate the settlement because the Postal Service could not post documents reflecting “practices and policies for prioritizing the monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail” if it would not deliver ballots to some voters.

The blocked USPS plan would have required ballot envelopes to bear individualized barcodes for automatic tracking, a policy described as useful for administering the electoral process but one that could require “significant costs and efforts from many jurisdictions.”

“A nationwide injunction raises questions about federal authority over election administration and voter data access, leaving officials and states facing uncertainty ahead of upcoming contests”

mezha.net

The decree and related USPS draft rules also required the Department of Homeland Security to compile and transmit to the states a list of American citizens confirmed and eligible to vote in each state, drawn from citizenship and naturalization records and other federal databases.

Zonebourse Suisse reported that Trump’s decree also directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of local and state election officials who would issue federal ballots to people deemed “ineligible” to vote.

CNN said the order would direct the Department of Homeland Security to draw from federal databases to assemble lists of voting age citizens in each state, “stoking fears that the lists will be used for overly aggressive voter purges.”

The court’s nationwide halt left officials and states facing uncertainty about federal authority over election administration and voter data access as the case proceeded through the courts.