Trump administration urges Supreme Court on postal voting dispute before US elections

In the legal dispute over controversial new rules for postal voting in the USA, the government of US President Donald Trump has once again referred to the Supreme Court. She called for the decision of a lower court to be suspended. This has so far prevented them from implementing the new postal voting rules.

The US government is pushing for a quick decision less than two months before the midterm elections. She has therefore submitted an urgent application to the court. In the state of North Carolina, the first postal voting documents are scheduled to be sent out this Friday.

The Supreme Court had already ruled in Trump's favor in August when it overturned a federal court's order that had blocked Trump's controversial mail-in voting plans. However, this was done for procedural reasons. The judges did not decide on the substantive legality of the project. Last week, however, a US federal judge stopped the implementation of Trump's decree again for 14 days, which the government is now rebelling against again.

U.S. Postal Service should only send documents to verified individuals

According to Trump's plans, the US Postal Service (USPS) will play a central role in controlling postal voting in the future. Above all, it should only send postal voting documents to people who are verified US citizens on a voter list that was created with the participation of immigration and social security authorities. In addition, states should submit the design of their envelopes for postal voting to the postal service for approval.

Republicans defend the plans with the argument that they want to prevent alleged election fraud. Critics suspect that Trump's motive is that he wants to make voting by mail more difficult and thus disadvantage the Democratic Party, whose voters disproportionately vote by mail.