President Donald Trump was nonchalant last week when asked about a contested administration rule that would use the U.S. Postal Service to weed out allegedly illegal midterm election ballots. His foes say that’s all part of a broader plan, even as they offered few sure-fire ways to stop it.
Trump was asked last Thursday specifically about the fate of the rule, which was since frozen by a federal judge, since North Carolina planned to send ballots out in eight days. Trump began his answer with: “North Carolina is great. It’s a great place. I won it all three times.”
He then said of the proposed Postal Service rule and mail-in ballots: “We want to make them legitimate.” But, a day after the Supreme Court appeared to give the rule a new life, Trump appeared to signal a partisan intent, telling reporters in the Oval Office: “And it was a great ruling for the Republican Party.”
A federal judge in Massachusetts a day later again blocked the rule as the administration prepares a high-stakes appeal. As that legal battle plays out, some congressional Democrats and outside groups are gearing up to counter a broader White House program to overhaul how elections are administered.
Congressional aides and leaders of some of those groups interviewed in recent days said the proposed Postal Service rule is only one part of what one source described as a “kaleidoscope” of moves already taken or floated by the administration. Each said Trump’s shrugging off of the Postal rule’s possible impact on North Carolina’s ballot plan was part of a confusion campaign.
