u. s. postal service

WASHINGTON  — California and 22 other Democratic-led states urged the Supreme Court on Monday to block President Trump’s plan to take control of voting by mail through the U.S. Postal Service.

They said it is too late in the election year to impose a new set of regulations for mail ballots.

Doing so, they said, would lead to mistakes, including eligible and registered voters being told they are not on the federal government’s approved list.

“Because of the high risk of errors and the limited window for correcting mistakes, many of the millions of voters who rely on mail voting — especially voters with disabilities and those in rural areas — would likely be denied mail ballots and disenfranchised,” they told the court.

More broadly, they argued that the Constitution “entrusted the states and Congress — not the president — with the responsibility to set rules for federal elections.”

The justices are likely to act in a few days on whether to allow the Trump administration‘s plan to proceed pending the adoption of new and detailed guidelines.

Last week, Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court contending judges in Boston moved too quickly to halt the administration’s new federal restrictions on voting by mail.

He argued judges should stand back for now, even though the midterm elections are only three months away.

Trump’s executive order required the U.S. Postal Service to use state-by-state lists of eligible voters who may send a ballot by mail.

Until now, states have had the constitutional authority to register voters for federal and state elections. And nearly a third of Americans now vote by mail.

Trump, however, has insisted that voting by mail leads to fraud, including by allowing noncitizens to vote.

Congress has refused to adopt new voting restrictions at Trump’s behest.

Instead, he issued an executive order on March 31 to enlist the Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security to ensure “citizenship verification and integrity in federal elections.”

The order called on Homeland Security to compile state-by-state lists of citizens who are eligible to vote. And it told the postal service that it must use those lists to restrict who may vote by mail.

“The USPS shall not transmit mail-in or absentee ballots from any individual unless those individuals have been enrolled on a State-specific list,” the order said.

But a federal judge and the 1st Circuit Court in Boston ruled Trump’s new regulations may not be enforced this year, at least in the 23 Democratic-led states which sued.

On Monday, they told the court that USPS delivered nearly 100 million mail ballots to or from voters in 2024, with roughly 30% of all voters nationwide casting ballots by mail.

BOSTON — A federal judge on Tuesday heard from voting rights groups and a coalition of two dozen states that want the courts to halt President Trump’s executive order seeking to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.

The plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. They also told the court that the move imposes a costly burden on state election officials to comply and would spread fear about the possibility of prosecution.

“This is going to be a sea change in the way that some states administer their ballots,” said Michael Cohen, who was part of a team representing California, adding that “it will be difficult to overstate the disruption that this will cause.”

Trump’s executive order, the second one aimed at elections during his second term, comes as he continues to raise the specter of widespread voting by noncitizens as a reason to change election rules. But states already have detailed processes aimed at keeping their voter rolls accurate, and voting by noncitizens has been shown to be rare. It also is a felony that can be punishable by deportation.

His latest order is being challenged through multiple lawsuits, including two filed in U.S. District Court in Boston.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the League of Women Voters in one of the two Boston cases, has called the order “a dangerous attempt to disenfranchise eligible voters nationwide.” The group said the order transforms “the U.S. Postal Service from a neutral mail carrier to an arbiter of who may cast a ballot by mail.”

“This case challenges an extraordinary and abusive assertion of executive power over the administration of federal elections,” the organization said in its complaint.

The hearing comes less than a week after another judge declined to halt the order. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, agreed with the Trump administration’s contention that it was too early to block the order because it has yet to be implemented.

The administration, in its motions to dismiss the lawsuits, argued that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring their claims. They also argued the motions are premature and that plaintiffs lack the legal basis to bring their Administrative Procedure Act claim, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

Stephen Pezzi, a lawyer for the Trump administration, said the harms the plaintiffs referred to were subjective, since much can change with the voting list before it is finalized. He also said no one would be prosecuted for violating the executive order.

Missouri Solicitor Gen. Lou Capozzi, speaking for the states supporting the list, argued it was too early to say how his state might use the list, but that it was “unlikely” any voter would be removed this year from the voter rolls because of it.

“We are not exactly sure how we would use it,” Capozzi said, adding that “we don’t want this process to be strangled in the crib, so to speak.”

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani took the requests for motions to halt the order, along with motions to dismiss the cases under advisement.

During oral arguments, Talwani expressed concerns about whether the federal system envisioned under the executive order could be ready for the upcoming midterm elections and about the risks posed to election workers who rely on a state list that differs from the federal one. She also raised doubts about the reliability of a federal list — noting, for example, women who changed their names after getting married or someone who has moved from state to state might be missed.

“Isn’t there a reasonable fear and concern on behalf of voters that they will be precluded?” Talwani asked.

Trump issued the order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the postal service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued that it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos, and the postal union has objected to the idea of mail carriers policing ballots.

The postal service has published a proposed rule required by Trump’s executive order in the Federal Register. Among other things, the rule would not apply to primary elections or overseas ballots.

Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigations, including ones run by Republicans, found it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.

Casey writes for the Associated Press.