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A federal court on Thursday issued an order blocking key provisions of Donald Trump’s efforts to use the U.S. Postal Service to restrict mail-in voting, siding with a coalition of voting rights groups and blue-state officials including Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield.
It’s the second time this week U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has stalled the president’s efforts to radically alter the country’s mail-in voting system, which he has falsely claimed cost him the 2020 election. And it comes mere weeks before the first ballots of the midterm election are scheduled to be sent out across Oregon.
“This is a win for every Oregon voter,” writes Rayfield, who joined a legal challenge to Trump’s effort back in April. “Oregonians have trusted vote-by-mail for more than 25 years because it works. It’s secure, it’s convenient, and it lets every eligible voter make their voice heard—and today the court agreed that Donald Trump can’t upend that system just a few months before ballots go out.”
Oregon was the first U.S. state to vote exclusively by mail in a presidential election.
In March, Trump signed Executive Order 14399, which directs the Department of Homeland Security to create lists of eligible voters and the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to voters on those pre-approved lists. The order represents a significant expansion of the role of the federal government in elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are the responsibility of the states (though Congress may pass laws that impact elections).
Rayfield—whose first term as attorney general has coincided with Trump’s second as president—has been a prolific filer of litigation against the administration. His office has filed or joined 76 pieces of litigation against the Trump White House.
“The Postal Service does not get to decide who receives a ballot in Oregon,” Rayfield writes. “That authority belongs to the states, and this order confirms it. While this fight isn’t over, this ruling means Oregon voters can count on the system they know as we head into the fall election.”
After Trump signed EO 14399, two legal challenges quickly emerged—one by Democratic officials including Rayfield and the other by a voting rights group in Massachusetts. Talwani upheld aspects of both lawsuits, effectively blocking Trump’s order from implementation. Then Monday, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled Talwani had been premature, holding that states hadn’t suffered damage because provisions of the executive order had yet to go into effect.
Both challenges were refiled in light of Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.
Talwani’s latest ruling—on Thursday—imposed a 14-day hold on the implementation of the executive order. The legal challenges could ultimately be joined and end up back before the Supreme Court.
Secretary of State Tobias Read issued a directive earlier this week ordering state election officials to conduct the midterm election under the schedule established by state statute. According to that timeline, the first ballots in the midterm election will go out Sept. 19 to military and overseas voters.
In her ruling, Talwani notes a lack of evidence regarding fraudulent absentee or mail-in voting.
“The USPS’s interest in correcting an unsubstantiated problem through likely unconstitutional means is dwarfed by the overwhelming risk of pervasive disenfranchisement of citizens who need access to mail ballots in order to vote,” the judge writes.
