WASHINGTON – A federal judge blocked the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out an executive order on mail-in ballots on Wednesday.
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President Donald Trump had ordered the Postal Service to transmit ballots for states only if those states first provided a list of mail-in voters, among other requirements. The ruling from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan blocks the Postal Service from implementing the order nationwide.
Sullivan argued that the order would violate the settlement agreement in an earlier 2020 lawsuit between the Postal Service and the NAACP. That agreement allowed the courts to oversee the Postal Service’s actions relating to the “monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail.”
“The Proposed Rule violates paragraph 2 of the Agreement because the Postal Service cannot post documents reflecting ‘practices and policies for prioritizing the monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail’ if its policies provide that it will not accept ‘noncompliant mailing’ and therefore will not deliver mail-in or absentee ballots to some voters, and if it will not mail ballots to any voters in a state where the state ‘declines or fails to certify a list,’” Sullivan wrote in his opinion.
People complete their ballots. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
Sullivan’s order comes after a previous case saw nearly 25 states challenge Trump’s order earlier this year. Those states were successful in blocking the Postal Service from carrying out the order in their states, but Sullivan’s ruling extends nationwide.
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The ruling also comes just a week after an Obama-appointed judge blocked Trump’s effort to curb noncitizens from registering to vote or voting in federal elections.
OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP’S ELECTION ORDER AS SAVE AMERICA ACT FIGHT INTENSIFIES
The lawsuit in that case centered on Trump’s March executive order, Executive Order (EO) 14248, which directed the creation of a federal voter registration list and imposed new restrictions on eligibility for voting by mail as part of the administration’s broader effort to combat voter fraud.
“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of our elections. The President’s executive order lawfully protects our elections, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in its implementation,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital last week.
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Fox News’ Ashley DiMella contributed to this report.
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