Judge Indira Talwani ordered the Trump administration to answer an emergency motion by 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday after the U.S. Postal Service posted a final rule that voting rights groups say would add new U.S. Postal Service election regulations for the midterms. The dispute now turns on whether the rule can advance before its intended Wednesday publication.
Talwani order
The League of Women Voters and other groups asked Talwani to enforce her preliminary injunction after the Postal Service posted the rule on Friday. In their filing, they said the Postal Service had “flouted” the order and that the rule’s immediate effect would sow widespread confusion among election officials and the public, thereby undermining voter confidence and disrupting the administration of elections.
Talwani had already ruled that the restrictions from President Donald Trump’s executive order were “presently causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy.” She also wrote that ensuring people can vote “heavily outweighs the executive’s attempt to unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election regulation.”
Postal Service rule
The new filing centers on a rule that the groups say would impose new mail ballot requirements for the midterms. The litigation reaches beyond one mailing deadline: the November elections will determine congressional control, and the rule’s timing leaves a narrow window before Wednesday’s planned publication.
The administration responded on Sunday that two business days was “an unnecessarily short period of time to prepare and file a response to the remarkable accusation that the United States is violating a court order.” It also said the final rule will apply to the midterms only if the government obtains relief from all outstanding court orders, including Talwani’s injunctions in this case and in a separate case pending at the Supreme Court.
Tuesday deadline
Talwani said in her Sunday order that the government created an emergency by posting the final rule on Friday night after the courts closed. She then set the response deadline for 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, putting the administration’s explanation on the record before the rule’s planned Wednesday publication.
That schedule leaves the immediate question in Talwani’s court: whether the Postal Service rule stays on track for publication or is blocked again before it can affect the midterms.
