A federal appeals court has rejected President Trump’s attempt to revive his plans to have the U.S. Postal Service referee this year’s elections by refusing to deliver ballots by mail unless states first verify the eligibility of the voters.
The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to overturn a lower court ruling that had shut down Mr. Trump’s plans, which he detailed in an executive order in March.
The Justice Department had argued that the Democrat-led states that challenged Mr. Trump’s order lacked standing to sue and that the case was not yet ripe because the government hasn’t finalized its plans. But the appeals court disagreed, finding that states are already having to grapple with the president’s directives.
For example, nearly half of the states already had obtained ballot envelopes that wouldn’t have complied with the postal service’s standards under Mr. Trump’s order, the courts found.
“The plaintiff states have no practical choice but to respond to the EO now,” the three-judge panel ruled.
Mr. Trump’s order had directed Homeland Security to produce citizenship lists for states, which they could use to scour their own rolls for noncitizen names.
He also ordered the postal service to come up with standardized envelopes for election mail, and to refuse to deliver election materials that didn’t meet the standard. And the post office would refuse to deliver ballots to names that didn’t appear on states’ lists of approved eligible voters.
Federal agencies were directed to withhold money from states and localities that didn’t cooperate, and the Justice Department was ordered to pursue investigations against violators.
All of that was blocked by the district judge.
The three-judge appeals court included two Biden appointees and one Trump pick, Judge Joshua Dunlap, who while mostly agreeing with colleagues did dissent on the DHS portion.
He said there’s no obligation for states to do anything with the list DHS compiles for them right now, so he would have allowed that part of Mr. Trump’s order to stand.
“Because any injury from the compilation and distribution of state citizenship lists is thus speculative and hypothetical, plaintiff states can show no harm stemming from that provision and lack standing,” he wrote.
In the U.S., elections are run by the states, though Congress has authority to make laws governing how elections are conduction for national offices.
State officials said they feared facing criminal charges from Mr. Trump’s Justice Department if the executive order remained in effect as the president issued it.
The order, for example, directs prosecutions against state or local officials who allow someone to vote who is not “18 years of age or older by the date of the upcoming election.” But some states allow 17-year-olds to cast ballots in party primaries as long as those voters will be 18 by the general election.
