Too Big To Ignore: Will of the People Weekly

Late Sunday, a judge Trump put on the bench himself blocked Trump’s anti-voter mail-ballot rule, ruling that Congress never gave the Postal Service the power to rewrite how states run elections. He is the second judge to freeze the rule, though the Supreme Court could wipe out both orders at any moment. Meanwhile, a federal audit caught postal facilities mishandling ballots during the primaries, seven Republican election officials asked the justices to keep the rule frozen, and Missouri’s secretary of state was held in contempt for defying his own state Supreme Court. Ballots are already in the mail in Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. What happens next is up to us, not them. When all of us show up, the will of the people wins. Try and stop us.

In the Administration

• A federal audit caught the Postal Service mishandling ballots months before the USPS even tried to implement Trump’s anti-voter mail-ballot order. The report found that postal staff lacked training on handling mail ballots, that tracking was deficient, and that errors risked ballots being postmarked incorrectly or arriving too late to count. Auditors flagged 214 delayed pieces, including 115 ballots (five of which missed the deadline entirely). Hundreds of New Jersey primary ballots were also misrouted to Memphis by USPS.
• Trump is moving to erase millions of people from the Census, which decides how many House seats each state gets. Last week, Trump’s Commerce Department proposed a rule that would drop noncitizens without green cards, including refugees and asylum seekers, from the Census — even though the Constitution requires counting the “whole number of persons” in each state. The rule would also eliminate the race and ethnicity questions the census has asked since 1790. This critical count will determine the apportionment of congressional seats after the 2030 census.

In Congress

• Congress is back for three weeks, but Republicans have run out of time to pass Trump’s anti-voter SAVE Act. Both chambers are back with only three weeks of session time left before Election Day. Senate Republicans still cannot break a filibuster on the bill, and even its GOP sponsors in the House are doubtful it could reach voters this year.

In the Courts

• U.S. Postal Service v. California (U.S. Supreme Court)
  • After a district judge blocked Trump’s anti-voter mail-ballot rules in District Court, Trump’s Justice Department went back to the Supreme Court for the third time in six weeks, asking the justices to lift the injunction. Now, a ruling could come at any time. Last week, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district judge’s order blocking the rules. Meanwhile, seven Republican secretaries of state and chief election officials, from Utah, Georgia, Kentucky, Kansas, New Hampshire, North Dakota and South Dakota, have filed a brief urging the Court to leave the rule frozen, warning it is far too late to change the rules on voters.
• DSCC v. Trump (U.S. District Court, D.C.)
  • Late Sunday, a federal judge whom Trump himself appointed blocked the anti-voter USPS mail-ballot rule outright, finding it likely exceeded anything Congress authorized. His order is much broader than the earlier one currently before the Supreme Court in USPS v. California.

In the States

Missouri

• The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Missouri Republicans on Thursday from using their gerrymandered congressional map, which would have redrawn Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City district and flipped the delegation from 6-2 to 7-1 GOP-leaning. The ruling landed minutes before the Missouri Supreme Court took up contempt charges against Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins for telling clerks to use the gerrymandered map anyway. The court later found him in contempt, but dropped the matter after Hoskins reversed course that afternoon.
• Five voters also sued the Missouri Secretary of State for roughly $80 million, invoking a state statute requiring the top elections official to pay between $100 and $500 to anyone harmed when he neglects his duties. The proposed class action covers 162,000 people who signed onto a referendum on the gerrymandered maps and had their signatures verified before the Secretary of State rejected the petition.

Utah

• Last week, Trump’s DOJ made public that it has placed Utah’s top elections official under investigation for refusing to hand over the state’s voter file. State Republicans, including Governor Spencer Cox, have defended her for doing her job.

Texas

• The Texas Supreme Court blocked Galveston County Republicans on Friday from swapping local voting maps between the March primary and the November election, which would have left some voters in districts where they never picked a nominee.

Upcoming Elections & Deadlines

Tuesday, September 15

• Delaware primary
• Georgia begins mailing ballots to military and overseas voters

Saturday, September 19

• Federal deadline for states to send ballots to military and overseas voters
• Missouri begins mailing ballots