A federal judge said Tuesday that the U.S. Postal Service violated a nationwide injunction by issuing President Donald Trump‘s mail-ballot rule for the November election, but declined to impose additional relief that would prevent its scheduled publication Wednesday. Her ruling came one day after the Supreme Court found states had sued too early over Trump’s mail-ballot executive order and lifted an injunction in a separate lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani concluded that the Postal Service defied her Aug. 11 preliminary injunction when it issued the final rule Friday and sent it to the Federal Register with an immediate effective date.
“Defendants cannot contend that they misunderstood the scope of the court’s order,” Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote in her five-page ruling. “Accordingly, despite the Defendants’ protestations that ‘[t]he United States takes its obligation to comply with court orders very seriously,’ the court finds that Defendants violated the preliminary injunction in this case.”
Despite her contentions, Talwani rejected the additional remedies requested by the plaintiffs, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, leaving the rule on track for publication on Wednesday. The existing injunction continues to prohibit USPS from enforcing the requirements for the Nov. 3 election or rejecting ballot mail that does not meet the administration’s standards.
The rule would overhaul requirements for mail-in voting. States would have to provide USPS with lists of voters who received mail ballots, and outgoing and return ballot envelopes would have to bear unique barcodes. USPS would check whether envelopes met the rule’s standards but would not determine whether a voter was eligible to cast a ballot, according to the administration.
The administration argued that publishing the rule did not violate the injunction because it says USPS will not implement it for an election held on or before Nov. 3 unless the government obtains relief from the court orders. It also said an immediate effective date gave states time to comply if the injunction is lifted before the midterm elections.
Talwani did not decide whether to vacate the injunction, as the administration requested after the Supreme Court paused a separate order in a lawsuit brought by 23 Democrat-led states and the District of Columbia.
SUPREME COURT LIFTS BLOCK ON TRUMP’S MAIL-BALLOT EXECUTIVE ORDER
The high court found those states had challenged the policy too early because the Postal Service had not completed the rulemaking process, while noting that states could challenge a final rule if it caused them harm.
That decision did not affect Talwani’s injunction in the League of Women Voters case. She wrote that USPS’s final rule “may ultimately inure to Plaintiffs’ benefit” by allowing them to challenge a completed regulation instead of a hypothetical proposal.