Washington — A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to pause a lower-court order blocking the Trump administration from enforcing new mail-ballot rules ahead of the midterms, marking the latest development in a legal fight that has already been brought to the Supreme Court.
In a nine-page opinion, a three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals said the administration had not shown that the U.S. Postal Service rule could take effect without triggering the kind of “chaos and widespread voter disenfranchisement” that a lower court judge found earlier this month could occur before the November midterms.
“Indeed, appellants have not even seriously challenged this aspect of the district court’s ruling, much less demonstrated why it is clearly erroneous,” the panel wrote. The judges also noted that, despite President Trump’s repeated claims about widespread fraud in mail voting, “there is no record evidence of past fraud or a likelihood of impending fraud related to the November 3 election.”
Allowing the rule to go into force, the judges said, would “likely result in the disenfranchisement of millions of voters across the country while providing minimal — if any — gains in combating voter fraud.”
The panel was made up of Judges Gustavo A. Gelpí, Julie Rikelman and Seth Aframe, each of whom was appointed to the First Circuit by President Joe Biden.
“Appellants have not demonstrated entitlement to a stay. Most prominently, appellants have not made a strong showing that the district court erred in determining that the Final Rule is likely unlawful,” the panel wrote. “The district court concluded, and we agree, that the Final Rule is likely a regulation of the manner of holding elections for members of Congress, which the Elections Clause of the Constitution assigns to the States and Congress, and not to an executive agency, such as the Postal Service, acting without congressional authorization.”
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction last week preventing the Postal Service from enforcing the rule. The administration then asked both the First Circuit and the Supreme Court to intervene. The Supreme Court has not yet acted on the administration’s request to stay the injunction.
In her ruling, Talwani concluded that the Postal Service requirements are likely unconstitutional and warned that the burden on states trying to comply so close to the November elections would “nearly guarantee[s] significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters.”
The final rule issued by the Postal Service requires states and localities to meet design requirements for mail ballots, including unique barcodes. They must also use an online portal to submit information about residents who will vote by mail, including their names, addresses and individualized barcodes.
ALSO READ: JD Vance Shares Strict Diet Behind His 30-Pound Weight Loss
Those voters will be enrolled with the Postal Service and included on state-specific “Mail-In and Absentee Participation Lists.”
The rule requires postal workers to review and verify ballot mail being sent to voters. Any ballot mailings that don’t comply with the requirements “will not be accepted and will be returned” to the election offices, the Postal Service said.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration for the third time asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case. In filings with the court on Thursday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the court to stay Talwani’s “baseless injunction,” arguing the new rule “is a lawful exercise of USPS’s express statutory authority to regulate the design of envelopes and the information needed about addressees.”
Melissa Quinn
contributed to this report.
