1st Circuit refuses to lift injunction on Trump’s USPS vote-destruction scheme

From the opinion:

Appellants have not shown that the district court abused its discretion in determining that any harm to them would be substantially outweighed by the injury that would be caused to appellees and to the public interest, including the millions of Americans who vote by mail, were the Final Rule to take effect for the November 3 election.

In this regard, the district court made detailed findings about the chaos and widespread disenfranchisement that would occur between now and November 3 should the Final Rule take immediate effect, including the fact that it would be impossible for some States to reprint compliant envelopes; the likely delays in the required USPS envelope review process; the lack of a presently operative portal; and the herculean task that would confront the USPS in scanning tens of millions of ballot envelopes and reviewing for a match with information in the presently non-operative portal. There is no countervailing record evidence disputing the district court’s findings on these points. Indeed, appellants have not even seriously challenged this aspect of the district court’s ruling, much less demonstrated why it is clearly erroneous. And moreover, there is no record evidence of past fraud or a likelihood of impending fraud related to the November 3 election. Thus, we see no obvious error in the district court’s conclusion that allowing this Final Rule to beeffective for the soon-arriving November 3 election will likely result in the disenfranchisement of millions of voters across the country while providing minimal — if any — gains in combating voter fraud.

If you want to get into the details of how absurd and outrageous the Trump administration’s position is, here’s the brief submitted by Rick Hasen, Pam Karlan, Ned Foley, and Doug Laycock. ETA: These are leading election law experts, writing in opposition to the government’s attempt to overturn the injunction.

Of course it remains to be seen if five members of the SCOTUS are willing to burn yet more institutional capital to help Donald Trump’s little election-stealing scheme further alone.

BTW this case is a good illustration of how wrong people are when they say there’s no difference between a 5-4 and 6-3 SCOTUS. The difference between having to peel one vote as opposed to two away from the fascism-enablers is enormous. (Thanks Ruth!).