🔸 Court blocks Trump plan to change rules for mail-in voting

Less than three months before the U.S. congressional election, a federal judge temporarily halted plans by Donald Trump, the country’s president, to tighten the rules for mail-in voting nationwide.

A court in Boston expanded a temporary ban on the implementation of the proposed regulations—previously covering only 23 states—to all 50 U.S. states. The court also stated that the federal government does not have authority to set election regulations.

Trump intends to implement his proposal before the congressional election in November. He justifies the changes he wants by claiming they are necessary to prevent alleged election fraud, but critics say his main motive is to deliberately deprive a range of Democratic voters of electoral advantages.

The final decision in this case will be made by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Department of Justice had recently requested an emergency authorization from the Supreme Court to carry out broad changes to election regulations.

In late March of last year, Trump ordered the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to send mail-in voting documents only to people whose names appear on a list prepared by the states.

As a result, the postal service would have been turned from an entity solely responsible for delivering election documents into an entity overseeing the election process. Detailed regulations on this matter were to be drafted later. In its temporary ruling, the court prevented the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out Trump’s order.