The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Sunday, Sept. 6, to lift a federal judge's block on new mail-ballot restrictions that would affect every Oregon voter.
Oregon conducts all elections by mail. The state has done so for more than 25 years, and Hillsboro residents face the Nov. 3 midterm elections with ballot-mailing deadlines just weeks away.
The filing marks the third time in less than six weeks the administration has asked the high court to intervene, according to OPB. Solicitor General John Sauer withdrew the administration's Sept. 3 appeal and replaced it with a new one targeting U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's Sept. 4 preliminary injunction, according to SCOTUSblog.
That injunction blocked the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from enforcing a rule requiring states to submit voter lists to a federal portal, redesign ballot envelopes with unique barcodes and allow USPS to refuse delivery of noncompliant ballots. Talwani ruled the USPS rule is unconstitutional because Congress never gave the Postal Service power over elections.
"Each day the injunction is in place risks sowing confusion and chaos because the injunction makes those preparatory steps voluntary, rather than mandatory," Sauer argued in the filing.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency appeals from the circuit that includes Massachusetts, directed challengers to respond by 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 9, according to SCOTUSblog. The Supreme Court previously allowed the administration's plan to move forward but has not ruled on whether it is legal.
What it means for Hillsboro
Oregon election officials must mail ballots to military and overseas voters by Sept. 19 and to all other registered voters beginning Oct. 14, according to a directive from Secretary of State Tobias Read. A ballot drop box already sits at the Hillsboro Public Library-Shute Park.
Read has requested nearly $500,000 in emergency funding to buy 20 new drop boxes statewide and compensate local elections staff for expected heavier drop-box use, OPB reported Sept. 1.
Oregon Elections Director Dena Dawson warned in a court filing that the state's vendors "do not have a stockpile of paper" and that post-pandemic paper supply shortages could prevent timely production of new envelopes if the USPS rule takes effect, according to CBS News.
No state has opted in. As of a Sept. 3 hearing before Talwani, not a single state had announced it would voluntarily use the USPS portal system, including the 12 Republican-led states that intervened to support the rule, according to OPB.
Oregon officials push back
Read said Sept. 4, after Talwani issued the preliminary injunction, that the ruling "reaffirms that our secure, fair, accurate vote-by-mail elections will go forward as they always do," according to KOIN.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who helped lead a coalition lawsuit filed Aug. 26 by 23 states and the District of Columbia, said in a Sept. 3 statement that the Postal Service's job is to deliver the mail and that states, not federal agencies, run elections.
A USPS whistleblower report made public the week of Sept. 1 warned the postal system's requirements could prevent millions of mail ballots from ever being sent and that the federal portal was built in roughly three and a half months without standard testing, according to OPB.
The Nov. 3 midterm elections will determine control of Congress. The Supreme Court could act on the administration's appeal at any time after the Sept. 9 response deadline.
