Judge Nichols, a Trump Appointee, Blocks Trump's Mail-Ballot Rule for the Midterms

U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols in Washington — a Trump appointee — issued a preliminary injunction late Sept. 13 barring USPS from implementing Trump's order restricting mail-in voting, becoming the second federal judge to block the rule as the Supreme Court separately weighs the administration's appeal of a similar injunction from Judge Indira Talwani in Boston. The USPS rule, issued Aug. 21, would require states to submit voter identity lists to a still-inactive online portal and have ballot envelope designs pre-approved before midterm ballots go out.

Nichols wrote that without an injunction there is "an increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted." Officials have said the rule couldn't realistically be implemented this close to the election, and a whistleblower told Congress it risked disenfranchising millions; ballots are already going out in Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Nichols had declined to block the rule in May as premature, then revisited it after plaintiffs refiled.

The order keeps the rule frozen in the Washington case while the Supreme Court still has the administration's separate appeal of Talwani's injunction pending; a final resolution likely turns on that appeal.