DOJ makes new appeal for Supreme Court to allow mail voting changes

The Trump administration on Sunday again asked the Supreme Court to allow it to restrict mail-in voting this election cycle.

In a 40-page emergency application , Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to immediately permit the administration to bar the U.S. Postal Service from sending mail-in ballots to residents of states that have not submitted a list of eligible voters based on citizenship data.

Sauer argued the administration is likely to succeed on the merits in two cases concerning the policy — one a group of Democratic-led states brought against the Postal Service and another the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts brought against the administration.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani on Friday indefinitely halted the Postal Service’s plan while lower courts decided on the policy. Her ruling came on the day North Carolina began to mail ballots to residents, which Sauer noted in his Sunday filing.

Talwani, an appointee of former President Obama, halted the administration from carrying out the plan a day after Sauer submitted an initial stay application to the Supreme Court. But in filing the administration’s new request for a stay of Talwani’s preliminary injunction, the solicitor general withdrew his Thursday filing.

The Supreme Court, which is on recess, will decide the case in an expedited fashion. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the three liberals on the high court, was assigned to the administration’s new request.

In his Sunday filing, Sauer wrote the policy “is a valid exercise” of the Postal Service’s authority, and “does not regulate state administration” of elections.

“The Rule ensures that States remain responsible for determining voter eligibility and eligibility to vote by mail, and it does not dictate ballot content, mailing or receipt deadlines, or ballot-counting procedures,” he wrote.

“The Rule thus plainly does not seize control of States’ administration of elections — it simply imposes reasonable preparation requirements for certain election-related mail,” Sauer added.

But Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Projects, blasted the Postal Service’s policy as “unconstitutional” and accused the Trump administration of “running” to the Supreme Court to circumvent lower court rulings earlier this week.

“The only emergency here is the one the administration created,” added Lakin, whose organization is representing some of the challengers to the administration’s rule. “The court’s temporary order preserves the voting procedures Americans have relied on for years, and it should stand.”