By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Sept 10 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday declined to allow President Donald Trump’s administration to implement a new U.S. Postal Service rule that would tighten mail-in voting requirements before November’s congressional election, as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a similar request.
The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put on hold an injunction that a lower-court judge issued last week that has prevented USPS from enforcing its new rule, which it adopted at the Republican president’s direction.
Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, had issued the injunction at the behest of voting rights groups and numerous Democratic-led states.
The administration before the 1st Circuit ruled had already asked the 6-3 conservative-majority Supreme Court to intervene and pause Talwani’s ruling, after it lifted an earlier injunction she issued that had blocked USPS from moving forward with the rule.
USPS issued the rule to implement an executive order the Republican president signed in March after years of Trump calling for tighter rules on voting by mail and pushing the false claim that his 2020 presidential election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden was the result of widespread voter fraud.
Under the rule, states must supply the USPS with lists of mail ballot recipients, and all outbound and return ballot envelopes must bear unique barcodes.
The USPS, under the rule, may refuse to deliver ballots that do not comply with the new standards or are associated with voters who do not appear on the lists.
Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, prevented the USPS rule from going into effect after concluding it risked disenfranchising voters, and was likely unlawful and adopted in violation of the U.S. Constitution, which gives states the authority to administer elections.
All 50 states allow for some form of mail-in voting. Twenty-nine states allow voters to ask to cast ballots by mail without providing a reason and eight conduct their elections entirely by mail.
A whistleblower statement from an anonymous federal official that was released on September 1 by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, alleged that USPS was rushing to implement a hastily created new system that risked disrupting the delivery of mail ballots during the election.
In asking the 1st Circuit to lift Talwani’s order, the U.S. Department of Justice had argued the rule was lawful and the plaintiffs’ case appeared based on an unfounded premise that USPS intends to seize control of the administration of federal elections.
It said state election officials would retain full control over who is permitted to vote by mail in their states and that the USPS’ role would be limited to ensuring that envelopes comply with its rule’s “modest” envelope design requirements.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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