By Andrew Chung
Aug 12 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration again asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to intervene to fully implement his executive order restricting the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide control of Congress.
The Justice Department filed a request asking the justices to put on hold a decision made on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston that blocks the U.S. Postal Service from nationwide enforcement of the directive’s tighter rules for voting by mail.
Trump, a Republican, signed his executive order in March after years of calling for restrictions on voting by mail and pushing the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud.
Talwani’s decision on Tuesday, in a case brought by several voting rights groups and represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, effectively expands on an earlier order she issued in June preventing the enforcement of Trump’s order in 23 mostly Democratic-governed states and Washington, D.C., which had also challenged the action as unconstitutional.
The administration has already asked the Supreme Court to pause the June decision. In its brief filing on Wednesday, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to lift that decision and make clear that the ruling applies to the judge’s action on Tuesday as well.
The administration contends that the lawsuits are premature as federal agencies have not yet taken any concrete actions that impact the plaintiffs, and so any harm they allege is speculative.
Trump’s executive order directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile and transmit to the states a list of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state, and the Justice Department to prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local election officials who issue ballots to people deemed “not eligible” to vote in federal elections.
It also required the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. The Postal Service recently moved to implement Trump’s directive.
In siding with the voting rights groups on Tuesday, Talwani wrote that the executive branch of the federal government had no authority to regulate elections, a responsibility that the U.S. Constitution assigns to individual states.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Nia Williams)
