A federal appeals court on Thursday left in place a lower-court order blocking a U.S. Postal Service rule that would have limited mail voting before the November midterms. The 1st Circuit panel refused to lift the injunction issued last week by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani. That order stops the Postal Service from carrying out the rule tied to President Trump’s March executive order.
The Postal Service rule would have required states to get federal approval for ballot envelope designs and to upload lists of mail-ballot recipients to a federal portal.
The three-judge panel said the administration had not shown that Talwani was wrong in finding the rule likely unlawful. The judges wrote that the president does not have authority to set state election procedures and that the government had not answered warnings that the changes would cause chaos and keep many voters from receiving ballots. The Supreme Court is already reviewing a related request in the same dispute.
