A judge has blocked the U.S. Postal Service’s proposals responding to President Trump’s order, including not delivering ballots in states that don’t turn over voter lists to the federal government.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump is testing the limits of his power with an executive order to restrict voting by mail. That order calls for the U.S. Postal Service to play a role in determining who can receive mail-in ballots. Here’s NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: President Trump’s executive order is facing five lawsuits and, so far, has not directly affected mail-in voting for this year’s primaries.
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GARY PETERS: Postmaster General Steiner, the Postal Service’s proposed vote-by-mail rule…
WANG: But this week on Capitol Hill, Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan grilled David Steiner, the head of the Postal Service, which is a financial supporter of NPR. USPS is proposing to use information from state election officials to create lists of approved absentee voters, as called for by Trump’s order.
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PETERS: So yes or no. If a state refuses to turn their absentee voter list over to the federal government, will the Postal Service still mail their ballots under this proposal?
DAVID STEINER: Under our proposed regulation, no.
WANG: This and other proposals for Trump’s order are now under review by federal courts for lawsuits by Democrats, almost two dozen states and voting rights groups. They argue the Constitution gives power to state legislatures and Congress, not the president, to set federal election rules. Senator Peters asked Steiner about another claim by the order’s challengers that USPS has no legal authority to regulate who can vote by mail and how.
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STEINER: I would have to defer that to the courts to understand the authority.
PETERS: Well, I think it’s clear that there’s nowhere in the Constitution – there’s no federal law that the Postal Service is authorized to create these types of voter databases, ballot verification systems or mandatory standards. It just simply doesn’t exist.
WANG: Trump himself voted by mail in Florida in March, and the president has said he issued this order to stop illegal voting by non-U.S. citizens in federal elections, which many reviews have shown to be incredibly rare. A federal judge in Boston is expected to rule soon on whether to block the order.
Hansi Lo Wang, NPR News.
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