A federal judge in Boston has handed the Trump administration another temporary win in the legal fight over the president’s executive order to restrict mail-in voting for the midterm election.
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U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani on Wednesday canceled a nationwide ruling she had issued that blocked the U.S. Postal Service from working on Trump’s directives.
The decision sets the stage for another possible consideration of the executive order by the Supreme Court. So far, the high court has ruled on a procedural issue, but not weighed in on whether Trump’s order is legal.
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Supreme Court gives Trump an interim win on his mail voting order, but hurdles loom
In that earlier procedural ruling, the Supreme Court halted a similar June ruling from Talwani that applied only to the 23 mainly Democratic-led states, plus Washington, D.C., that sued over the order. The high court concluded Talwani weighed in too early, before USPS issued a finalized plan for carrying out Trump’s directives.
In Wednesday’s order, the judge cited that reasoning by the Supreme Court for granting the administration’s request to cancel her nationwide ruling, which was also issued before USPS’ Aug. 21 release of a final rule for federal ballot mail.
That rule’s most controversial provision lays out a plan for delivering mail-in ballots only to people on lists of absentee voters that states would have to turn over to the mailing agency, as called for by Trump’s order.
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Trump, who himself has voted by mail in Florida, has said he signed this executive order in March to stop illegal voting by non-U.S. citizens, a problem that many studies and audits find is extremely rare.
The order’s challengers argue that it oversteps a president’s authority under the Constitution, which gives the power of setting federal election rules to the states and Congress. They also claim that USPS has no authority to control mail-in voting.
It remains unclear if and how Trump’s directives would ultimately affect voting by mail for the midterms, which is set to start in a matter of weeks.
Trump’s order is expected to face more legal hurdles as this lawsuit and other related cases filed by Democrats, voting rights groups and two dozen mainly Democratic-led states proceed.
Those challengers are asking Talwani, as well as another federal judge in Washington, D.C., to issue new rulings that would block USPS from carrying out its finalized plan and likely be appealed to the Supreme Court.
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