Federal judge freezes Trump overhaul of mail-in voting as SCOTUS awaits

Filed 2h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Evil March

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Rijksmuseum · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A federal judge appointed by President Trump halted his administration's overhaul of mail-in voting late Sunday, finding the U.S. Postal Service lacked authority to impose new ballot design rules and a national voter registration list just weeks before the midterms.

Judge Carl Nichols ruled the Postal Service's final rule, published Aug. 27, was likely 'ultra vires' since no statute grants it power to enact such requirements. He cited the risk that millions of the roughly 50 million expected mail ballots could go uncounted amid a compressed timeline for states to redesign and reprint materials.

The ruling follows Trump's March executive order directing Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to compile citizen voter lists and instructing the Postal Service to require opt-in registration. Nichols noted the Justice Department offered no evidence of significant fraud to justify the changes.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A judge picked by the president just told the president's own mail carrier to stand down, and did it with weeks to spare before people start voting. That's not some partisan hit job, that's a guy reading the rulebook and noticing nobody wrote the part where the post office gets to invent voter eligibility. When your own appointee says slow down, maybe the plan was moving too fast for its own good.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Evil March · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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