Judge blocks Trump’s USPS mail-in ballot changes
A federal judge has blocked a proposed rule by the USPS that would have required states to share their mail-in adn absentee voter rolls with the agency, citing violations of a prior settlement between the NAACP and USPS aimed at ensuring timely and reliable delivery of mail-in ballots during the 2020 elections.Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the USPS to refrain from implementing the rule, which was linked to an executive order from President Trump intended to limit mail-in voting by restricting delivery of ballots from states that did not comply with sharing voter lists. The judge criticized the rule for overstepping prior agreements and stated it was incompatible with court oversight and protections for voting rights.USPS Postmaster General David Steiner supported the rule, stating it would improve ballot security through unique barcodes and personalized voter lists, although the NAACP praised the ruling as a safeguard against potential barriers that could disproportionately affect Black voters. Sullivan emphasized that the order prevents the USPS from enforcing a policy that could hinder mail-in voting and highlighted concerns that the rule’s implementation would have exerted federal control over voting processes.
A federal judge struck down a proposed rule from the Postal Service that would have forced states to turn over their mail-in and absentee voter rolls to the agency.
Senior Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, a nominee of former President Bill Clinton, ordered the USPS to be enjoined from implementing its proposed rule in line with President Donald Trump‘s executive order to stop delivering mail-in ballots to states that do not turn over their voter rolls. The proposed rule outlined a method for each state and the USPS to agree on a “Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” and how mail-in ballots should be packaged.
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The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge wrote in his opinion that the proposed rule violates a prior settlement agreement between the NAACP and the USPS to ensure the Postal Service delivers mail-in ballots timely and reliably with court oversight, stemming from the 2020 elections.
The judge gave three reasons why the rule proposal does not fit with the parties’ prior agreement, including that the settlement “does not allow the Postal Service to put in place a policy of refusing to accept and deliver certain ballots.” His order blocks the implementation of the rule nationwide.
Sullivan wrote that Trump’s executive order prompting the rule was “designed to exert federal control over who in the United States may be sent a mail-in or absentee ballot in federal elections by the Postal Service.”
Postmaster General David Steiner has confirmed that, if the proposed rule is accepted, the USPS would not deliver ballots to states that refuse to participate and send their eligible voter lists to the Postal Service. Steiner recently backed the rule proposal at a Senate hearing as consistent with long-standing recommendations from the USPS, saying the policy is “not a political question, it’s a question of how do we most efficiently and securely move ballots.”
“That is what our proposed rules suggest, is that we have unique barcode, unique envelope,” Steiner told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “That is not something that is new. That’s something that’s been being used by states throughout the country on both sides of the political spectrum.”
In addition to creating an eligible voter list for each state, the proposed USPS rule would also create a personalized barcode for each voter on the list, which would subsequently appear on each voter’s corresponding ballot.
NAACP senior associate general counsel Anthony Ashton hailed the ruling as a “crucial step” in protecting voting rights in a Wednesday statement.
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“The proposed USPS changes would have created unnecessary and unlawful barriers, in direct violation of the USPS’s mandate to prioritize election mail,” Ashton said. “Those barriers could have disproportionately harmed Black voters, who are more likely to rely on mail voting due to longstanding inequities in access.”
The Washington Examiner has reached out to the USPS for comment on the order.
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