Trump again appeals to Supreme Court on mail-voting restrictions with midterm elections looming
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BOSTON (AP) -- The Trump administration on Thursday again asked the Supreme Court to let it move ahead with restrictions on mail ballots before this year's the midterm elections in November even as legal wrangling over President Donald Trump's executive order continued in lower courts.
The government filed an emergency appeal asking the court to intervene, one day before ballots begin going out for the midterm elections.
The justices previously allowed the president's plan to move ahead, but they have not decided whether it is legal.
Under Trump's executive order, the U.S. Postal Service could refuse to deliver ballots from states that do not submit lists of eligible voters and follow a uniform envelope style.
The appeal came hours after a federal court hearing in Boston where a Justice Department lawyer could not tell a judge whether the new system to regulate mail ballots was operational.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani repeatedly questioned attorney Michael Velchik about whether the Postal Service could actually implement Trump's plan from an executive order he issued last spring. The key piece is an online portal that would track tens of millions of mail ballots. States would be required to upload their list of mail voters to the portal to have ballots delivered, and if the data there didn't match what was on the envelopes, the ballots would not be sent.
"I don't even have a declaration from the Postal Service: 'This is how it will work.' I don't have it. I have nothing," Talwani said, adding later that it felt like the government was running an "experiment" to see if the system would work in the upcoming election.
"As you sit here today, you can't tell me the government has a program ready to go?" Talwani asked.
Velchik repeated that the Postal Service would "fully implement the rule" that it published last month, triggering the latest round of litigation. He argued the main issue is whether Talwani has the legal power to stop it.
"The $64,000 question is, is this authorized by the statute?" Velchik said.
Talwani is considering whether to extend her temporary order barring the Postal Service from requiring use of the system through Sept. 10. The first state to send out all its mail ballots, North Carolina, is scheduled to begin shipping them out Friday, with other states quickly following.