Appeals court hands Trump a loss on mail voting as Supreme Court considers his executive order

What this ruling does:

• It protects immediate mail-in voting access: The ruling prevents the Postal Service from refusing or returning mail-in ballots just as several states begin sending them out to voters for the November midterm elections.
• It curbs executive control over state election laws: The appeals court reaffirmed the president lacks the constitutional authority to unilaterally regulate state-run voting procedures and envelope designs.
• It sets up an urgent Supreme Court decision: The decision intensifies pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to quickly resolve the emergency dispute and give election administrators clear rules before voting expands nationwide.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An appeals court on Thursday upheld a block on President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting, a decision that comes as the Supreme Court considers the same case and states have already started sending out ballots for the high-stakes midterm elections.

The three-judge panel refused to lift a preliminary injunction against the order issued last week by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani. It prohibits the U.S. Postal Service from implementing Trump’s directive. The Postal Service has said it would not deliver ballots from states that did not pre-clear their envelope design with the federal government and submit a list of voters to an online portal, which has yet to be activated.

Election officials warn that it’s impossible to comply with those terms, especially with the first mail ballots already being sent out in Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

On Wednesday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and a coalition of county election supervisors across the nation filed a bipartisan amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, urging it to block a last-minute federal rule governing mail-in ballots.

The ruling matters in Georgia, where military and overseas ballots are set to go out within days.

At a Cobb County warehouse, tens of thousands of absentee ballot applications are stacked in boxes awaiting processing, Raffensperger’s office said.

Raffensperger said the rule threatened to slow that process down.

“We just looked at the timeline,” Raffensperger said. “We’re going to be sending out — start sending out UOCAVA — overseas and military ballots, next Tuesday from the 15th through the 19th. So this rule would just be way too late.”

Georgia’s absentee ballots are still set to go out on schedule, Raffensperger said.

“We’ve already accepted 50,000 applications, and we expect probably upwards of 200,000 people that will want to vote

The officials warn that forcing new mandates on local offices just weeks before the November midterm elections invites widespread administrative chaos and voter disenfranchisement.

While the 38 current and former election officials from 10 states take no position on the legal authority or policy behind the new rule, they argue that the logistical demands simply cannot be met in the 48 working days remaining before Election Day.

The panel of three judges nominated by former President Joe Biden agreed with the plaintiffs the president does not have the power to regulate states’ election policy.

“Appellants have not made a strong showing that the district court erred in determining that the Final Rule is likely unlawful,” they wrote, a reference to rule published by the Postal Service to implement Trump’s order.

The panel’s decision comes even as the Supreme Court is already considering the same case, which is part of a frenzied legal rush as states are beginning to send out mail ballots for this fall’s midterm elections. Democrats and civil rights groups in a separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C., also are trying to halt the executive order.

The plaintiffs swiftly filed new lawsuits after the Postal Service finalized its rule governing mail ballots.

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