Appeals Court Leaves Mail Ballots In The Mail

BOSTON—A federal appeals court has allowed the Postal Service to continue delivering lawful mail ballots without first confirming that state election officials uploaded each voter to a new federal portal.

The First Circuit on Thursday refused to lift a preliminary injunction against rules implementing President Donald Trump’s mail-voting order. The three-judge panel said the administration had not shown that the trial judge was likely wrong to find the rules unlawful. The Constitution assigns election administration to states and Congress, an arrangement that once again omitted the president from a useful workflow.

The Postal Service rule required states to obtain federal approval for outgoing and return-envelope designs, use specified barcodes and submit lists of mail voters through an online system. Ballots from voters not enrolled through that process could be denied delivery. The portal was not yet active as the government asked states to use it.

Election officials said compliance was impossible for the November midterms, particularly after Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin began sending ballots. The administration argued that the system would protect election integrity. Its evidentiary record did not establish past fraud or an approaching fraud problem connected to this year’s mail voting, according to the lower court.

The Supreme Court is also considering an administration request in the same dispute. Its earlier procedural order allowed the Postal Service to develop a rule without deciding whether the eventual rule was legal. For now, an envelope addressed to a voter may travel through the mail on the modest authority of election law and postage.