Judge blocks Trump’s new USPS rules for mail-in ballots with just weeks before midterm elections
Time is ticking as election officials fear thousands of eligible voters could be wrongly disenfranchised under new rules
A federal judge has blocked new mail-in ballot rules from the U.S. Postal Service that were ordered by Donald Trump after states and election officials warned that it would be “virtually impossible” to comply with changes that could spark chaos for voters in the middle of midterm elections.
The new rules, ordered by the president through an executive order, would require election officials to add unique barcodes to ballot envelopes and order states to upload lists of people who requested them, giving the nation’s postal agency expansive authority to decide who gets to vote in an unprecedented shakeup of election administration.
Massachusetts District Judge Indira Talwani is blocking the changes through at least September 10 as a legal battle plays out. The Trump administration has already asked the Supreme Court for permission to push the changes through as the president faces another major obstacle in his attempts to centralize control of the nation’s elections.
But the administration is running out of time. Many states are already mailing out their first waves of ballots, and election officials have repeatedly warned that the changes could accidentally disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters without any recourse to make their ballots count.
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