A federal court in Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction blocking a new United States Postal Service rule that would have imposed requirements on state mail voting systems, Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford announced.
The rule would have required states to obtain federal approval for ballot and return-envelope designs, register voters with a new USPS tracking portal, and comply with other provisions. Under the rule, USPS would not deliver ballots to voters not on its compiled lists and would not deliver ballots in envelopes lacking the agency's approval.
Attorney General Ford led a coalition of 24 state attorneys general and the Governor of Pennsylvania in challenging the rule. "When I filed this lawsuit, I said that every time President Trump threatens our state's sovereignty, I will drag him to court, and I will win," Ford said. "I hope he realizes how serious I am because today, we won."
President Trump issued an executive order on March 31 directing the Postal Service to adopt regulations prohibiting USPS from transmitting mail ballots to voters not on a USPS-controlled list. On August 21, USPS announced a rule implementing those demands. Attorney General Ford and the coalition filed a lawsuit on August 26, and on August 28, the court granted a temporary restraining order, finding that compliance before the November elections was "practically impossible" and created a significant risk of disenfranchisement.
The coalition argued that the rule upends successful, longstanding vote-by-mail procedures and violates federal statutes and the Constitution, which reserves primary authority to administer elections to the states.