A federal judge in the United States has decided this Friday to extend the block on the order from the Government of Donald Trump that aimed to restrict mail-in voting in the upcoming midterm elections scheduled for November.
The new preliminary injunction, issued by federal district judge Indira Talwani, replaces a previous injunction that she herself had approved to stop the plan of the United States Postal Service. This policy sought to limit the use of mail-in voting through new rules, a system that the Trump administration has been labeling as "fraudulent" for the past few years.
In her ruling, the magistrate argues that the rules designed by the Postal Service likely violate the Constitution and that the difficulties faced by states in implementing these provisions just months before the November elections "virtually guarantee a significant deprivation of the right to vote for eligible voters."
Talwani has also insisted that the Postal Service likely overstepped its authority by imposing these requirements, given that "the Constitution reserves the regulation of elections to Congress and the States."
(This) "conflicts with the legal framework of Congress and is unconstitutional to the extent that it intrudes not only on Congress's powers under the Elections Clause but also on the powers that belong to the States," she noted in her ruling.
The Trump administration, which had already asked the Supreme Court to overturn the previous injunction, has indicated that it will appeal this new decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
However, the Executive's room for maneuver is increasingly limited, as North Carolina and other states have begun this Friday to send out their first mail-in ballots, and the rest of the territories are expected to start doing so in the coming days.