Trump Government renews appeal for restrictions to mail vote

The appeal was brought after the district judge Indira Talwani extended an order against the Postal Service (USPS), which prevented the application of an executive order of Trump for the November elections.

The legal dispute occurs while the states send the mail ballots, leaving Washington little time to introduce significant changes to this modality.

“ Voting bulletins have already begun to be sent in North Carolina and more states will initiate the shipping process as long as the restraining order remains in force – including Alabama on September 9th and at least five states in the week of September 13th,” Deputy Attorney General John Sauer said, in the document presented and quoted by the Associated Press.

“ As soon as these envelopes with the ballots enter the postal stream, there is no way to recover them, and although the precautionary measure allows the Postal Service and the states to continue to take steps to ensure that the envelopes meet the requirements of the rule... on each day that the providence is in place there is a risk of sowing confusion and chaos because the measure makes these preparatory steps voluntary rather than mandatory”, he added.

This appeal is, according to the AP, the third time that the administration has requested the intervention of the Supreme Court, which allowed the President's plan to continue, without having pronounced its legality.

According to Trump's executive order, the Postal Service (USPS) may refuse to deliver ballots in states that do not provide lists of qualified voters and do not follow a uniform standard of envelopes.

This dispute may have significant impacts on the midterms of November, which may decide the control of Congress, with almost a third of voters resorting to mail voting.

Democratic states and voting rights groups consider the amendments to be unconstitutional and the electoral authorities take the time to review their systems to ensure compliance with the new directives.

Donald Trump regularly denounces this voting method and considers it one of the main reasons for his defeat for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, which he never recognized.

A report by Brookings Institution, published in 2025, concluded that mail fraud occurred in about four cases for every 10 million votes sent by mail.

The executive order was challenged by several US states.

These argue that the Constitution grants states and, in some cases, Congress the power to create electoral rules, not the President or USPS.

Last week, three days after the Supreme Court allowed the plan to proceed on procedural grounds, but without deciding whether it is legal, the federal judge Indira Talwani again suspended the order.

The judge considered that the states do not have the time and money to create and produce new ballots, update their systems and train employees to enter voters' data into USPS.