The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 3 to allow the government to begin implementing a regulation that tightens rules around mail-in voting.
In the emergency application, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asks the justices to stay U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s Aug. 27 order that blocks the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) final rule published Aug. 26 that implements Section 3 of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14399. That provision would assign federal agencies a larger role in who receives a mail ballot and how those ballots are processed by the USPS.
Talwani issued a 14-day temporary restraining order that blocked the post office from implementing the parts of Section 3 that required state and local election officials to submit outbound and return mail envelopes for USPS design review, place unique tracking barcodes on those envelopes, and upload voter names, addresses, and barcode data to a new federal portal. Mailings that do not match portal data or that fall short of the envelope standards would not be accepted for delivery.
The short-term freeze was set to expire around Sept. 10 if Talwani declined to extend it. Earlier in the day on Sept. 3, the judge held a hearing on extending the temporary restraining order. Separately, the Trump administration previously filed an appeal of the restraining order that’s still pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Sauer said the nation’s highest court needs to act urgently.
“Even before September 10, two States—North Carolina and Alabama—will begin sending ballots to voters, the first as soon as September 4. Once those ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them,” he said.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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