DOJ asks Supreme Court to let USPS restrict mail ballots — SkimNews
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- Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed a 40-page emergency application Sunday asking justices to immediately permit the administration to bar USPS from sending mail-in ballots to residents of states that have not submitted eligible-voter lists based on citizenship data.
- U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, indefinitely halted the USPS plan Friday while lower courts decide the policy, ruling the same day North Carolina began mailing ballots to residents.
- The administration faces two parallel cases: one brought by Democratic-led states against USPS and another by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts against the administration.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was assigned to the new request, which Sauer filed a day after submitting an initial stay application that he then withdrew.
- In the Sunday filing, Sauer argued the USPS rule "is a valid exercise" of postal authority and "does not regulate state administration" of elections, contending it only imposes "reasonable preparation requirements for certain election-related mail."
- Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, called the policy "unconstitutional" and accused the Trump administration of "running" to the Supreme Court to circumvent lower-court rulings earlier in the week.
Why it matters: The Supreme Court, now on recess, will decide the case on an expedited basis before the midterms. With North Carolina already mailing ballots and Talwani's injunction in place, the justices' ruling will determine whether USPS can condition ballot delivery on citizenship data — deciding mail-in access for voters in non-compliant states this cycle.
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