Judge Considers Voting Change Ban      09/03 06:42

   A federal judge in Boston will hear arguments Thursday on whether to extend 
her prohibition against the U.S. Postal Service requiring states to use a new 
mail balloting system for the midterms as part of an executive order by 
President Donald Trump.

   (AP) -- A federal judge in Boston will hear arguments Thursday on whether to 
extend her prohibition against the U.S. Postal Service requiring states to use 
a new mail balloting system for the midterms as part of an executive order by 
President Donald Trump.

   The hearing in the closely watched case comes the day before the first state 
begins sending mail ballots to voters.

   U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani is considering whether to order a 
preliminary injunction that would bar the Postal Service from requiring the new 
system to be used for the midterms. Last week, she imposed a 14-day temporary 
restraining order to keep it from being used. That order expires next week as 
more states begin sending out mail ballots.

   Talwani has been here before. In June, she prohibited the administration 
from trying to implement Trump's order for the November election, ruling the 
changes came too close to the election for the federal government to embark on 
such a project. But the Supreme Court late last month ruled that Talwani's 
order was premature because the Postal Service had not yet published 
regulations governing how it would apply Trump's order. The agency did so just 
before the high court ruling came down, prompting Democrats and voting rights 
groups to swiftly re-file their lawsuits.

   They counter that the president has no authority to set election rules, 
which is a power designated in the Constitution to the states and in some cases 
Congress.

   They won an initial victory with Talwani's restraining order, which has 
already been appealed by the administration. It's likely the case will again 
end up before the Supreme Court.

   Trump has long opposed mail voting and falsely blamed it for his 2020 
election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, even though he often uses that method to 
cast his own ballot.

   Election officials say there's simply no way they can comply with the Postal 
Service directives, which could require a complete overhaul of their 
operations. Before it delivers mail ballots for any state, the Postal Service 
would have to approve the design of the envelopes that contain them and have 
the state upload a list of voters receiving them to an online portal.

   Some ballots have already gone out. A few municipalities in Wisconsin opted 
to send mail ballots to voters earlier this week, but Friday marks the full 
kickoff of voting as North Carolina starts shipping its mail ballots to all 
voters who requested them.

   The administration has contended the changes are relatively minor and legal. 
But the portal was still not active this week, and most election offices have 
already printed their envelopes and ballots.

   A whistleblower report made public this week warns that the postal system's 
requirements could lead to millions of mail ballots never being sent. The new 
rule requires all ballots to be physically brought to post offices before being 
mailed to voters, but if a single one's bar code registers an error, the whole 
batch gets thrown out, even if it contains tens of thousands of legitimate 
ballots.