Appeals Court Rejects 'Likely Unlawful' Trump Push to Undermine Mail-In Voting as Supreme Court Looms

A federal court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration's request to reinstate an executive order that placed restrictions on mail-in voting ahead of the midterm elections, arguing that the order is "likely unlawful."

The US First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Donald Trump's mail-in voting executive order likely violates the US Constitution's elections clause, which grants states the rights to oversee their own elections, subject to oversight from the US Congress.

The court also found that the regulations proposed by the order "could prevent millions of Americans from obtaining and returning their ballots" in the coming election.

The ruling noted that the Trump executive order places a number of onerous restrictions on mail-in voting, such as requiring states to print "a voter-specific Intelligent Mail barcode ('IMb')" on all outgoing ballots as a precondition for their delivery by the United States Postal Service (USPS).

Additionally, the court wrote, the order would compel states "to obtain USPS approval for new ballot-envelope designs; to purchase new envelopes to replace those already ordered; to assure that there are technological systems in place adequate to generate IMbs; and to upload voter-specific information to a USPS online portal that is still not operational."

The court said these restrictions are so severe that they validate an earlier ruling from a federal district court, which found that implementing Trump's executive order would lead to "chaos and widespread disenfranchisement... between now and November 3."

Among other things, the court found these Trump-ordered rules would make it "impossible for some states to reprint compliant envelopes," while also creating a "herculean task" of "scanning tens of millions of ballot envelopes and reviewing for a match with information in the presently non-operative portal."

The court also took a shot at Trump administration lawyers, whom it alleged "have not even seriously challenged" the district court's finding about the chaos the president's executive order would cause.

The injunction against Trump's mail-in voting order came as a result of a complaint filed by a number of civil society groups, including the League of Women Voters and the Association of Americans Resident Overseas.

In a joint statement released after the ruling, the plaintiffs and their counsel said that the court affirmed that "the US Postal Service is not the gatekeeper for mail ballots."

"This decision rightly keeps in place an order blocking USPS from enforcing its disruptive and disenfranchising rule through the November election," they added, "and preserves the current system, which has worked safely, securely, and reliably for decades."

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom took the opportunity to taunt the Trump administration for suffering yet another loss in its crusade to clamp down on mail-in voting.

"The rule of law continues to slap down Donald Trump's dangerous and un-American attacks on our free and fair elections," Newsom wrote. "California will never stop fighting for our democracy and the people's ability to exercise their constitutional right to vote."

The Trump administration has asked to the US Supreme Court to reinstate the president's voting order. With mail-in ballots for the upcoming midterms already being sent out in some states, a ruling from the nation's highest court is expected in the coming days.