An appeals court on Thursday kept in place a block on President Donald Trump’s executive order that aimed to limit mail voting.This decision happens as the Supreme Court is looking at the same case, and many states have already started sending out ballots for the important midterm elections.
A group of three judges, all nominated by former President Joe Biden, decided not to remove a temporary ban on the order.
The ban, issued by a U.S.District Court judge, stops the U.S.Postal Service from carrying out Trump’s directive.The Postal Service has said it won’t deliver mail ballots from states that haven’t cleared their envelope designs with the federal government and haven’t submitted a list of voters to an online system that’s not yet working.
Election officials say it’s not possible to follow these rules, especially since some states have already begun sending out ballots, like Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
The judges agreed with the people who sued the president, saying he doesn’t have the power to control how states run elections.
The court wrote that the people who challenged the order didn’t show that the district court made a mistake in saying the final rule from the Postal Service might not be legal.
The judges also said the Trump administration didn’t do much to counter the arguments from election officials that the changes would cause “chaos and widespread disenfranchisement.” They added that the challengers didn’t really try to argue against the court’s decision, let alone show it was wrong.
The government also didn’t provide proof of past election fraud to justify the restrictions, the judges said.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
This decision comes even though the Supreme Court is already considering the same case, which is part of a busy legal process as states begin sending ballots for the upcoming midterm elections.
Democrats and civil rights groups are also trying to stop the executive order in a separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C.
The 1st Circuit Court had previously supported a hold on the order, but the Supreme Court lifted that hold in a procedural move that didn’t decide if the order was constitutional.
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