Judge Deals Another Setback to Trump’s Election-Rigging Efforts

Donald Trump’s efforts to exert more federal control over US elections were dealt another blow on Tuesday when a federal judge barred the United States Postal Service (USPS) from taking steps to implement part of an executive order in which the president tried to limit mail-in voting.

As WhoWhatWhy reported, Massachusetts District Court Judge Indira Talwani ruled in June that the administration lacks the authority to force new mandates on states that determine which Americans are eligible to vote by mail.

Specifically, Trump had demanded that states compile “citizenship lists,” and ordered that the USPS to only deliver ballots to recipients on those lists.

However, Talwani’s initial ruling only applied to the 23 states and the District of Columbia that had challenged the executive order in court.

Tuesday’s decision, however, covers the entire country.

The Trump administration argued that the courts should not be allowed to weigh in on the issue yet because the postal service has not yet finalized a regulation implementing the executive order.

However, Talwani brushed aside that argument in Tuesday’s decision, saying that it would cause irreparable harm to the plaintiffs, which in this case included the League of Women Voters and other groups, to allow USPS to move forward.

“[The] court finds it prudent to review the [executive order] now, where less than 90 days pend before the midterms and the millions of citizens who rely on mail voting require clarity as to how or whether they will vote in November,” she wrote.

In justifying her injunction, she added that the harm to the plaintiffs is, for example, that they cannot properly educate voters as to which rules will be in place for the midterms, which causes “confusion and uncertainty.”

Without ever having provided any evidence that mail-in voting facilitated fraud in his 2020 election loss, Trump has been waging war against the practice ever since.

With this part of his executive order on hold, the president now has to hope that the Supreme Court will reverse the first injunction. However, even its conservative majority will have trouble justifying a clearly illegal action.

While Trump wants the federal government to “nationalize” elections, the Constitution makes it very clear that he has no power to do so.

The plaintiffs noted as much in response to the ruling.

“This ruling is a victory for voters and for the Constitution,” said Marcia Johnson, chief of activation and justice for the League of Women Voters. “Neither the president nor the US Postal Service has the authority to rewrite election rules. Millions of Americans, including seniors, military voters, voters with disabilities, rural voters, and citizens living overseas, rely on voting by mail to participate in our democracy.”

Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, added that the decision “sends another necessary message to an administration that continues to weaponize portions of the government to sow chaos into our elections at the expense of eligible voters.”

Pointing out that “every last-minute disruption, every manufactured obstacle, and every attempt to seize control of election administration puts real voters in the crosshairs,” she added that Trump “does not get to rewrite the rules of voting, and he certainly does not get to treat voters as collateral damage in his campaign to control state-run elections.”

That, of course, won’t stop the president from trying. However, this ruling makes it more difficult for him to do so.