The Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to allow restrictions on mail-in voting before congressional elections

Today (Sunday), the administration of US President Donald Trump renewed its request to the Supreme Court to allow a plan that would restrict voting by mail before the congressional elections scheduled for November, after a federal judge on Friday blocked the implementation of those restrictions.

Trump administration lawyers submitted an urgent request to the nation's highest court to allow the US Postal Service to restrict mail-in voting, even as some states have already begun sending mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections scheduled for November 3.

Federal Judge Indira Talwani, who resides in Boston, extended a ban on Friday preventing the new rule from taking effect.

The final decision on whether to move forward with the administration's restrictions on mail-in voting now rests with the Supreme Court.

John Sawer, who represents the Trump administration before the Supreme Court, urged the court to allow the rule to go into effect immediately, warning that maintaining the injunction issued by the lower court “risks causing confusion and chaos,” as more states issue mail-in ballots.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson set a deadline on Wednesday to respond to the Trump administration’s request.

The administration had previously filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court to vacate the short-term injunction issued by Judge Talwani. Before the Supreme Court issued its ruling on that request, Judge Talwani extended the ban on Friday, prompting the administration to submit a new request on Sunday.

Trump has spent years calling for restrictions on mail-in voting, amid his false claims that his defeat in the 2020 presidential election was the result of widespread fraud in the election.

A US federal appeals court rejected President Donald Trump's administration's request to lift the ban on the use of a federal immigration database to verify the accuracy of citizenship records on state voter lists.

In a ruling issued yesterday, Friday, by a majority of two votes to one, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia refused to lift the ban imposed by a lower court on the use of the “Systematic Verification of Aliens to Obtain Benefits” database of the Department of Homeland Security, according to Reuters.

The previous ruling ruled that the government may not use this system before the midterm elections scheduled for November 3, in which Republicans will try to maintain their narrow majority in both chambers of Congress.

Lead Judge Sri Srinivasan and US Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, who were appointed to the Court of Appeals by former President Barack Obama, upheld the lower court's decision that the systematic verification system violates the Social Security Act because it shares personal information about millions of Americans.

The Court of Appeal judges also cited concerns about the possibility of inaccurate citizenship information, which could result in people having to prove their citizenship to remain registered on voter lists, and in some cases could even lead to their voter registration being cancelled.

US Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, appointed by Trump, dissented from the majority opinion.

In July, a judge in Florida ordered the US Department of Homeland Security to resume granting four Republican-led states access to the database, after another judge prevented the department from continuing to use the database nationwide.