The Justice Department pressed the Supreme Court to lift an injunction blocking President Donald Trump's mail-ballot order, even after its only argument had "evaporated."
Trump signed Executive Order 14399 in March, directing the United States Postal Service to impose new requirements on mail-in ballots ahead of the November midterm elections. Federal courts repeatedly blocked it, including with two separate injunctions from a Massachusetts federal judge now barring implementation of the order for the Nov. 3 election.
The Trump administration moved forward with the plan anyway. On Friday, the Postal Service published that final rule.
The department had argued before the Supreme Court that the legal challenge was premature because no final postal rule existed at the time.
UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen wrote Monday that the new development wiped out the government's entire case for lifting the injunction.
"DOJ's argument has evaporated," Hasen pointed out.
But the DOJ pushed forward anyway and quickly filed its second supplemental brief with the Supreme Court on Monday, offering a thin defense it had never raised at any previous stage of the litigation. According to the filing, the District Court's injunction should not be enforced because it has decided based on a "hypothetical rule."
The DOJ's filing did not address the fact that the finalized USPS rule retained the core parts of Trump's plan that the court had objected to.
Hasen called the move "ridiculous."
The USPS has moved forward with its plan to impose mail-in voting restrictions despite court challenges. The final rule carries an immediate effective date, designed to take effect the moment any injunction is lifted.
"Delaying the effective date would jeopardize implementation of this rule in time for the 2026 general election," the rule states.
The rule also requires states to submit the name and address of every domestic mail voter to a new federal portal — data the rule says would be "available for use by appropriately authorized law enforcement entities" — even though those voters have not yet been accused of anything.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who issued both injunctions, found no basis for that concern. Talwani's August 11 order states the record is "devoid of any evidentiary support of illegal or fraudulent absentee voting."
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed an emergency motion Friday arguing the postal service had "flouted" Talwani's order by publishing a rule aimed squarely at November.
The rule is scheduled for formal publication in the Federal Register on Tuesday, 71 days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.