Blue states sue to block Trump's mail-in ballot restrictions

Democratic-controlled states on Wednesday filed a new lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that tightened restrictions on mail-in votes ahead of  the midterm elections. The lawsuit came just two days after the U.S. Supreme Court found a similar lawsuit premature.

The new lawsuit was brought against the U.S. Postal Service by 24 states and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a Wednesday statement that the USPS had no authority to determine who was eligible to vote by mail. The executive order implemented additional measures to secure the integrity of mail-in ballots, such as unique ballot envelope identifiers. The new policy would create confusion, unnecessary costs, and unacceptable risks for voters, James said in her statement.

Whether a qualified voter may submit his or her ballot by mail is a question of state law, as is the determination of eligibility for a ballot to be accepted and processed, the lawsuit argued. Congress has afforded no authority to the USPS regarding election rules, the lawsuit added, claiming that the actual unlawful activity stemmed from the White House.

Why did the previous lawsuit fail? The Supreme Court on Monday found that states didn’t have the right to challenge the order, ruling the previous lawsuit premature. The high court wrote that as the executive order did not cause the states to suffer any concrete harm, their lawsuit had no standing. Though the Court ruled to stay the state’s enjoinment of the executive order, it noted that its decision did not mean it found the executive order to be necessarily lawful. On that score, time would tell, the Court said. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, saying the states faced imminent injury if the executive order was implemented. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also dissented, arguing that Trump’s executive order needlessly injected chaos into the upcoming election.

The most recent lawsuit was filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The executive order is linked to the SAVE America Act, which would require a valid ID and proof of citizenship in order to vote, and would eliminate mail-in ballots, except in cases of illness, disability, military service, or travel. Every Senate Democrat recently voted against the act, stalling it in the Senate, Trump announced, characterizing their votes as a reflection of a desire to cheat in the election.