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 of voting-rights groups led by the League of Women Voters … Read More
Trump DOJ asks Supreme Court to greenlight anti-mail voting order before midterms
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 court order blocking the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from implementing Trump’s … Read More
Trump’s anti-mail voting order gets blocked again, this time by federal appeals court
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 carried out in 23 states and the District of Columbia. … Read More
Court rejects government request to lift injunction halting Trump’s election Executive Order and USPS rule
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 the full First Circuit to review the case, or it … Read More
Increase in rejected ballots in California primary raise concerns about USPS postmarking changes
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 for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple … Read More
Appeals court allows USPS to move forward with Trump’s anti-mail voting order, for now
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 agency from implementing standards and procedures in its proposed mail … Read More
USPS says it’s not implementing Trump’s anti-mail voting order, for now
Democracy Docket: The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) confirmed it is following a pair of court orders blocking it from implementing President Donald Trump’s anti-mail voting executive order. “The Postal Service is abiding by these injunctions, which are also currently under appeal,” Postmaster General David Steiner and Amber McReynolds, chairwoman of the USPS board of governors, wrote Monday in a letter … Read More
Delivering the vote: How 4 pressures are testing the Postal Service’s role in American elections
Brookings: Every election cycle, tens of millions of Americans vote without setting foot in a polling place. Their local election office mails them a paper ballot, they mark it at home, and they hand it back to a letter carrier to return. Over the past three decades this has grown from a niche convenience into how almost a third of … Read More
