Federal Court Hears Arguments for Preliminary Injunction to Block U.S. Postal Service from Interfering with Mail Ballots
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BOSTON – A federal District Court today heard arguments in a lawsuit challenging a new rule issued by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to implement President Trump’s March 31 executive order restricting mail voting.
The plaintiffs, a coalition of nonpartisan voter service and civic organizations, argue that USPS lacks congressional authorization to issue the rule, and that the rule violates the Constitution’s separation of powers by interfering with state election administration. States and Congress, not the President or the USPS, have the authority to regulate elections.
USPS’ currently blocked rule requires all states to use the same envelope design for mail ballots, create unique bar codes for every ballot, and upload an advance list of all mail voters to a new and untested federal online portal. Under the rule, USPS will not deliver ballots unless the envelopes comply with its new design mandates, each mail voter’s personal information is submitted to the federal portal, and the information in the portal and on the envelope match. According to a recent whistleblower disclosure, the new ballot-verification process will reject batches of ballots in their entirety if even a single barcode fails to scan properly, threatening to delay thousands of ballots at a time.
The suit was filed by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, League of Women Voters, Association of Americans Resident Overseas, U.S. Vote Foundation, OCA - Asian Pacific American Advocates, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Massachusetts, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC (Advancing Justice – AAJC), and LatinoJustice PRLDEF.
Plaintiffs and counsel jointly issued the following statement after the hearing:
“With just days until states begin to mail ballots, the U.S. Postal Service is trying to disrupt how states administer mail voting by imposing an entirely new rule that neither Congress nor the states authorized, that the Constitution forbids, and that will lead to confusion, error, and mass disenfranchisement. A temporary restraining order runs out on Sept. 10, and we are urgently seeking a preliminary injunction that would block these unlawful mandates through the Nov. 3 election. Every day matters: This rule is creating confusion and chaos and impeding vital voter engagement work. The American people deserve to know that the safe, secure, and trusted mail voting systems they rely on will continue to function effectively, without unlawful interference from USPS.”
For more information about this litigation: Supplemental Complaint: League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump | Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC