Federal Judge Preserves Settlement Blocking U.S. Postal Service Voter Roll Data-Sharing Rule

A federal judge in Washington blocked the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing an executive order that would have stopped delivery of mail-in ballots in states that do not share voter rolls with federal agencies. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S.

District Court for the District of Columbia issued the ruling, which prevents the postal service from carrying out the March order nationwide. The decision follows a similar ruling last week by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani that halted the plan in 23 states and the District of Columbia.

The Postal Service issued a proposed rule on June 2 that would have required states to give the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies access to voter lists and adopt new balloting procedures. States that did not comply would have faced refusal of ballot deliveries. The measure was part of the March executive order directing changes to election administration across the country.

Judge Sullivan sided with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP argued that the rule would violate a 2021 legal settlement requiring the Postal Service to take extraordinary measures to ensure timely delivery of ballot mail. The NAACP had sued the Postal Service in 2020 after delayed mail service threatened election access during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"This ruling is a critical step in protecting the rights of voters who rely on the timely delivery of mail-in ballots to participate in our democracy," said Anthony Ashton, senior associate general counsel at the NAACP. "The court today correctly recognized that USPS’s plan to create roadblocks to mail-in voting was inconsistent with its commitment to timely deliver election mail," said Allison Zieve, director of Public Citizen Litigation Group.

The Postal Service was approached for comment but did not respond.