A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump Administration’s attempt to reinstate the mail-in ballot executive order.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals, stacked with Biden judges, warned the mail-in ballot executive order could cause chaos and “widespread disenfranchisement.”
The three-judge panel included: Judge Gelpí (George W. Bush), Judge Rikelman (Biden), and Judge Aframe (Biden).
“In this regard, the district court made detailed findings about the chaos and widespread disenfranchisement that would occur between now and November 3 should the Final Rule take immediate effect, including the fact that it would be impossible for some States to reprint compliant envelopes; the likely delays in the required USPS envelope review process; the lack of a presently operative portal; and the herculean task that would confront the USPS in scanning tens of millions of ballot envelopes and reviewing for a match with information in the presently non-operative portal,” the panel wrote.
Last Friday, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Trump’s executive order related to the Post Office’s mail-in ballot rules.
US District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, replaced the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that she granted last month.
Meanwhile, DOJ Solicitor General John Sauer has petitioned the Supreme Court, as North Carolina has already started sending out mail-in ballots.
The Trump DOJ last Thursday already asked the Supreme Court to lift Judge Talwani’s TRO.
John Sauer argued in his previous emergency petition that the Postal Service possesses legal authority to regulate mail-in ballot designs.
John Sauer told the Supreme Court that the Postal Service’s new rule “imposes only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements for federal-election ballots sent.”
“The Rule’s regulation of the U.S. Mail—not federal elections — is plainly constitutional,” John Sauer wrote. “While the States have primary authority to regulate the manner of elections, they cannot choose to use the federal mails to carry out their elections but then insist that their election-related mail is somehow exempt from the Postal Service’s rulemaking authority, conferred by Congress, to regulate envelope design and addressee information.”
On Sunday, John Sauer made another appeal to the Supreme Court in a separate case and asked the high court to overturn Judge Talwani’s preliminary injunction.
Judge Talwani has been assigned to two separate lawsuits against President Trump’s mail-in ballot executive order.
States are already preparing to send out ballots for the midterm elections.
North Carolina already sent out mail-in ballots on Friday.
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