US judge blocks Trump administration’s bid to restrict mail-in voting

Ruling comes amid drive by Republican administration to reshape rules around voting ahead of midterms

The Trump administration’s plan to deny mail-in ballots to states that would not give their voter rolls to federal officials was blocked Thursday morning by a federal judge in Boston.

US district judge Indira ⁠Talwani ruled that the provisions of an executive order issued by Donald Trump on 31 March requiring the postal service to require the use of a barcode tracking system for ballot envelopes tied to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data was unconstitutional.

It comes amid a broader drive by the president and his officials to reshape rules and regulations around voting ahead of November’s midterm elections. Trump is pushing Congress to pass the Save America Act, which would impose new ID requirements on voters and curtail mail-in voting.

Voting rights groups, joined by 23 states and the District of Columbia, sued the administration to stop the proposed rule, arguing that the US constitution provides no authority for the president to issue orders governing the administration of elections.

Democratic senators made the same point on Wednesday as they grilledDavid Steiner, the US postmaster general, in a Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee hearing, questioning the legality of the proposed policy.

“It is clear there is nowhere in the constitution and no federal law that the postal service is authorized to create these types of voter databases, verification systems or mandatory standards,” said Gary Peters, a Demovcratic senator of Michigan and the ranking member on the committee. “It simply does not exist.”

“I would think that states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they think they’re sending out are the ballots that are actually getting sent out,” Steiner replied.

As Steiner testified, postal service officials issued a public notice of rule-making on Wednesday, laying out proposed changes.

State election officials would be required to submit a voter manifest containing names, addresses and individual barcode identifiers to a new “USPS federal ballot mail portal” at least 30 days before an election.

USPS would physically verify outgoing mail-in ballots against this federal database. Any ballots addressed to individuals not found on the submitted lists, or envelopes that fail to feature newly mandated federal serialization and barcode tracking, would be rejected and returned.

Talwani’s injunction “does not bar the federal government from providing assistance with verifying the citizenship or eligibility of any voter if the assistance is provided at the request of any State and within the framework provided by Congress”, the ruling said.

States can voluntarily comply with the proposed rules, but the injunction blocks “taking any steps to create a new federal program to superintend and control Plaintiff States’ maintenance of their voter rolls; or initiating any investigation or prosecution of Plaintiff States, their officials, local officials, or agents of such state or local officials involved in the administration of federal elections within Plaintiff States”, it said.