Appeals Court Upholds Block on Trump's Mail Voting Order

A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to lift a lower court's injunction against President Donald Trump's executive order restricting mail voting, leaving the measure blocked as the Supreme Court weighs the same dispute.

The three-judge panel, whose members were nominated by former President Joe Biden, upheld the preliminary injunction issued last week by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani. That order bars the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out the directive.

Under the order, the Postal Service had said it would not deliver ballots from states that failed to pre-clear their envelope designs with the federal government and submit a list of voters to an online portal. That portal has not yet been activated.

Election officials have warned that those conditions cannot be met, particularly as the first mail ballots are already going out in Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

The panel sided with the plaintiffs' argument that the president lacks authority to regulate states' election policies. "Appellants have not made a strong showing that the district court erred in determining that the Final Rule is likely unlawful," the judges wrote, referring to the Postal Service rule implementing the order.

The ruling comes as the Supreme Court is already reviewing the same case, part of a rapid legal scramble as states begin distributing mail ballots for this fall's midterm elections. In a separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C., Democrats and civil rights groups are also seeking to halt the executive order.

The 1st Circuit had previously upheld an earlier hold placed by Talwani on the executive order, but the Supreme Court lifted that ruling on procedural grounds without deciding the plan's constitutionality. The plaintiffs filed fresh lawsuits after the Postal Service finalized its rule governing mail ballots.