U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani on Wednesday canceled a nationwide ruling she had previously issued blocking the U.S. Postal Service from implementing President Trump's executive order on mail-in voting, delivering the Trump administration another temporary victory in ongoing litigation over the directive.
The reversal clears the way, at least temporarily, for USPS to proceed with work on Trump's directives as the case potentially heads back to the Supreme Court. The nation's highest court has already intervened once in this litigation on procedural grounds, though it has not ruled on the legality of the executive order itself.
In June, Judge Talwani issued a ruling that applied specifically to 23 mainly Democratic-led states, plus Washington, D.C., that filed suit challenging the order. The Supreme Court subsequently halted that decision. Wednesday's action by Judge Talwani removes a broader nationwide block she had imposed more recently.
Trump signed the executive order in March. In response, USPS released a final rule establishing new requirements for federal ballot mail. The rule sets forth design specifications for mail-in ballot envelopes and outlines a system under which the postal service would deliver mail-in ballots exclusively to individuals appearing on absentee voter lists that states would be required to provide to the mailing agency.
Significant uncertainty remains about whether and how Trump's directives would ultimately impact mail-in voting for the midterm election, which is scheduled to begin in a matter of weeks. The executive order faces additional legal challenges as this lawsuit and other related cases brought by Democrats, voting rights organizations, and two dozen mainly Democratic-led states continue through the courts.
The Supreme Court's earlier involvement addressed only procedural matters and did not examine the substantive question of whether the president possesses the authority to impose such restrictions on mail-in voting through executive action.
