GOP state officials push to revive Trump's mail voting restrictions for 2028 election
Some Republican state officials are reviving a bid for mail-in voting restrictions for the 2028 election by appealing a court order blocking the Postal Service from carrying out a revised ballot rule.
Noticia publicada originalmente por NPR — News en npr.org (se abre en una pestaña nueva). Minuto 24 no es autor de este contenido.
Claves de la noticia
- Doce fiscales generales estatales republicanos buscan reactivar las restricciones del presidente Trump al voto por correo para las elecciones de 2028.
- Comenzaron el proceso para apelar una orden de septiembre del juez federal Carl Nichols, que bloqueó un plan del Servicio Postal de EE. UU. para aplicar una orden ejecutiva de Trump.
- Según Nichols, el Servicio Postal probablemente no tiene poder para exigir a los estados listas de nombres y direcciones de votantes, salvo que el Congreso se lo haya otorgado.
- La Corte Suprema se negó en septiembre a suspender un fallo distinto que solo aplicaba a las elecciones de medio mandato, que acaban de concluir.
- No está claro si el gobierno de Trump apelará la decisión de Nichols ni si los estados demandantes mantendrán el caso tras las recientes victorias demócratas.
Contexto
El voto por correo es una vía habitual para millones de estadounidenses, y las reglas que lo regulan suelen generar disputas judiciales entre gobiernos estatales y federales. Las fiscalías generales estatales son los organismos encargados de representar a cada estado en los tribunales, y su orientación política puede cambiar tras las elecciones. En este caso, el debate gira en torno a si una agencia federal puede imponer requisitos a los estados sobre el manejo de boletas. Los funcionarios electorales han advertido que cambios de última hora podrían afectar a votantes con discapacidades y a quienes viven lejos de los centros de votación. Por ello, la disputa sobre el alcance legal del Servicio Postal seguirá influyendo en la organización de futuros comicios federales.
Resumen elaborado por Minuto 24 con ayuda de inteligencia artificial a partir de la noticia publicada por NPR — News. Puede contener imprecisiones: ante cualquier duda, consulta la fuente original.
An election worker sorts mail-in ballots at the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office in Doral for Florida's primary election in August. Lynne Sladky/AP hide caption
Voting for this year's midterm elections just concluded, but Republican officials in a number of states are already looking to shape how votes are cast in 2028.
Twelve GOP state attorneys general are pushing to revive the president's bid for mail-in voting restrictions in time for the 2028 election.
On Thursday, they started the process of appealing a September order by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, one of the two judges who blocked the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out a plan released in response to an executive order by President Trump.
The Republican state attorneys general represent Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas. It's not clear, however, how long some of these states will continue this case, given that Democrats won up and down the ballot in the midterms. In Texas and Kansas, Democratic candidates are set to take control of their states' attorney general's offices in January.
In September, the Supreme Court refused to pause a similar ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who is based in Boston. That order stopped USPS from working on its revised rule for federal ballot mail, but it only applied to this year's midterm elections.
Nichols' preliminary injunction blocks USPS from implementing the plan for all federal elections, including the 2028 race.
It's not clear if the Trump administration plans to appeal Nichols' ruling by Friday's deadline for filing a court notice. Asked about the Justice Department's plans, DOJ spokesperson Matthew Tragesser replied in an email that the department doesn't comment on ongoing litigation.
The blocked rule — which the Postal Service released in late August — would require states to turn over lists of voters' names and addresses in order to have them delivered by USPS.
Nichols, a Washington, D.C.-based judge who was nominated by Trump, found that the mailing agency likely has no power to impose that requirement on states.
"As the Government concedes, the Postal Service could issue (and enforce) the Rule only if Congress gave it the authority to do so, but here no statute grants the Postal Service the power to issue key parts of the Rule," Nichols wrote.
The administration's earlier push to put these new restrictions in place for the midterms alarmed many election officials, who were concerned about last-minute changes causing major disruptions to the tens of millions who regularly vote by mail. Some voters with disabilities and those in places without polling sites, they feared, could have lost the ability to exercise their right to cast a ballot.
A whistleblower report claimed the online system officials would need to use to follow USPS' revised ballot requirements had not been properly tested and could have resulted in many eligible voters not getting their mail-in ballots in time or at all.
While the Supreme Court ultimately stopped implementation of the USPS rule for the midterms, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from that ruling.
Fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh said in a concurring opinion that he believed state and local election officials did not have enough time to "reasonably implement the rule" this time. But Kavanaugh noted that "there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority."
Edited by Benjamin Swasey
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