Recent Posts

New York Times: President Trump’s legal and rhetorical assault on voting by mail — and the flurry of contradictory court decisions around it — has left voters confused and local officials scrambling just eight weeks before November’s critical midterm elections. The contortions have county registrars dusting off Election Day contingency ... Read More

New York Times: A U.S. Postal Service official has alleged that the agency is moving forward with a “secretive, rushed” effort to implement President Trump’s order exerting federal control over mail voting, despite a court order blocking those plans. The official filed a whistle-blower report, published on Tuesday morning by the office ... Read More

The litigation challenging the Postal Service’s ballot-mail rule is moving quickly, with new developments occurring almost by the hour. The legal questions could remain unresolved until the Supreme Court weighs in again, probably in mid-September. By then, however, the most pressing issue may no longer be whether the new rule ... Read More

New York Times: The rate at which mail votes have been rejected for arriving late has ticked up in primaries this year and general elections last year in roughly a dozen states, prompting election officials to worry that the U.S. Postal Service is ill-equipped to deliver ballots in the fall ... Read More

Erik Katz, Notus: President Donald Trump’s push to have the U.S. Postal Service screen voters for eligibility in the midterm election is running up against tight deadlines that some officials are warning will cause massive errors and disenfranchisement. The Supreme Court this week temporarily allowed the Postal Service to move forward with ... Read More

Verdict Justia: Two decades ago, the Supreme Court had the wisdom to foresee the trouble that would ensue if courts made decisions about voting and elections when an election was looming. In the run-up to the 2006 midterms, the Court “reinstated a previously blocked citizenship law in Arizona”—Proposition 200—“just two and a ... Read More

New York Times: Four weeks before President Trump signed an executive order seeking to restrict mail voting, he filed four nominations for vacancies on the Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service. All four were Republicans. Three have expressed doubts about who won the 2020 presidential election and the ... Read More

The Postal Service has issued its final rule governing ballot mail for federal elections. It’s mostly the same as the proposed rule, but the background discussion of the rule contains a new, noteworthy development: The Postal Service is now taking responsibility for the final decision. The proposed rule issued on ... Read More

Sometime this week, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the DOJ’s application to stay an injunction that has barred federal agencies from fully implementing Trump’s executive order on mail voting. The ruling will probably determine if the order can be implemented in time to impact the November midterms ... Read More

Democracy Docket: A federal judge in Massachusetts Tuesday issued another order blocking the United States Postal Service (USPS) from implementing President Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on mail voting and his attempt to create a national voter registration list before the midterm elections. District Judge Indira Talwani agreed with a coalition ... Read More

Earlier this week, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy Defenders Fund, on behalf of League of United Latin American Citizens, Secure Families Initiative, Arizona Students’ Association, and City of Madison, Wisconsin, filed a complaint with the Postal Regulatory Commission arguing that the Postal Service failed to request an advisory opinion ... Read More

On July 9, the Postal Service announced that the Bryant Station Post Office at 23 West 43rd Street in Manhattan would close at the end of business on August 8. The notice simply cites a “loss of lease” as the cause, adding that “a timeframe for a return to Bryant ... Read More

Democracy Docket: The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the Supreme Court to allow President Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on mail voting to go into effect before the upcoming midterms. The DOJ’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court Monday came days after a three-judge panel for the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower ... Read More

On March 31, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” On June 2, 2026, as directed by the order, the United States Postal Service published a proposed rule, “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections,” in the Federal Register. The proposal would establish new ... Read More

Democracy Docket: The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court order that blocks the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from executing the president’s March executive order attacking mail voting. The decision means President Donald Trump’s sweeping assault on mail voting won’t be ... Read More

On Saturday the First Circuit affirmed Judge Indira Talwani’s injunction blocking implementation of key provisions of President Trump’s election executive order. The court concluded that the government had failed to make the “strong showing” required for the extraordinary remedy of a stay.  At this point, the government can ask for ... Read More

Associated Press: Nearly 150,000 California voters had their mail-in ballots rejected for the state’s June primary, a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot. California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on ... Read More

Daily Freeman: WEST PARK, N.Y. — Residents will rally outside their post office Friday, as the U.S. Postal Services shuts the doors to the West Park Post Office for the last time, leaving 170 families in the lurch. Residents of Esopus hamlet were informed by mail on June 23 that ... Read More

The Save the Post Office Coalition, a member organization with over 300 national and state organizations including many retired and active postal workers, had written to the Senate urging member to vote NO and reject the nominations of Jeffrey Brodsky and William Gallo to serve on the United States Postal ... Read More

Democracy Docket: A federal appeals court Friday temporarily revived the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to move forward with a Trump-backed rule that could severely restrict mail voting ahead of the 2026 midterms. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted USPS’ request to pause an order from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan that blocked the ... Read More