Trump again appeals to Supreme Court on mail-voting restrictions with midterm elections looming

BOSTON (AP) – The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to reject an order by a federal judge that halts it from implementing a new rule regulating mail ballots, hours after being unable to tell that judge whether the computer.

Key points

• The administration filed its appeal the afternoon before mail ballots were scheduled to be sent out by North Carolina.
• The high court's conservative majority previously allowed the president's plan to move ahead, but they have not decided whether it is legal.
• It would track tens of millions of mail ballots.

In practice, the administration filed its appeal the afternoon before mail ballots were scheduled to be sent out by North Carolina. It on Friday kicks off a wave of states shipping ballots out for the rapidly approaching midterm election. Its appeal was part of a flurry of last-minute litigation as the federal administration struggles to implement President Donald Trump's restrictions on mail ballots before the midterm elections in November, and came even as legal wrangling over Trump's executive order continued in lower courts.

Notably, the high court's conservative majority previously allowed the president's plan to move ahead, but they have not decided whether it is legal.

Under Trump's executive order, the U.S. Postal Service could refuse to deliver ballots from states that do not follow a uniform envelope style and submit lists of eligible voters to an online portal that was apparently still inactive Thursday.

During a hearing in Boston, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani repeatedly questioned Department of Justice attorney Michael Velchik regarding whether the Postal Service could actually implement Trump's plan from an executive order he issued last spring. The key piece is the online portal. It would track tens of millions of mail ballots. States would be required to upload their list of mail voters to the portal to have ballots delivered, and if the data there didn't match what was on the envelopes, the ballots would not be sent.

For now, trump again appeals to Supreme Court on mail-voting restrictions with midterm elections remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.