Judge extends pause on ‘unconstitutional’ Trump order, postal rule limiting vote-by-mail

Filed 1h ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Glee Club Polka

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: The White House · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction blocking a Postal Service rule restricting mail-in voting, extending an earlier freeze and calling both the rule and the Trump executive order behind it unconstitutional. The Trump administration immediately appealed to the 1st Circuit.

Talwani found the rule intrudes on states' constitutional authority over elections and Congress's own power to legislate on the subject, calling it unworkable ahead of the November midterms. Postmaster General David Steiner had defended the rule hours earlier as a 'modest' mail regulation involving only technical envelope standards and a voter list USPS would not edit.

Talwani rejected that framing outright, writing that the government's denial that this is an election regulation 'rings hollow.' Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said the ruling keeps her state's mail voting on track, while ballots have already begun going out in North Carolina.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Calling a rule that screens who gets a mail ballot 'not an election regulation' is the kind of sentence that only survives if nobody reads the rest of the paragraph. The administration wrote this two months before votes go out and is now surprised a judge noticed the timing. If the plan really was as modest as the Postmaster General says, it wouldn't need a Supreme Court fight to finish the sentence.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Glee Club Polka · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

Read it scored.

Every story, every clown, every kazoo — in your pocket. Music plays automatically. Regret is optional.

GET IT ON iOS GET IT ON ANDROID