A federal judge on Thursday halted — at least for now — attempts to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting.The move stalled the directive for a second time only about a week before the first mail ballots are due to be sent out for the rapidly approaching midterm elections. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani placed a 14-day hold on the government implementing the order in a case that could be headed back to the Supreme Court, which on Monday overturned an earlier ruling of hers that had blocked Trump’s order from taking effect.Talwani wrote in her ruling, “Plaintiff states have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms.”
The latest ruling came in advance of a Sept. 3 hearing after Democrats and voting rights groups refiled their lawsuits to comply with the recent Supreme Court decision. The high court’s conservative majority did not rule on the legality of Trump’s executive order. Still, it said the legal challenges against it that led Talwani to initially freeze it were filed too soon.Now the administration has issued a formal rule governing whether the U.S. Postal Service will deliver states’ mail ballots, effectively restarting the legal fight.
