A federal judge on Sept. 4 issued a preliminary injunction preventing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from implementing a regulation that tightens rules around mail-in voting.
The new ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani follows the 14-day temporary restraining order she granted on Aug. 27, which halted key parts of the Postal Service’s final rule. The short-term freeze was set to expire around Sept. 10 if she had declined to extend it.
The Trump administration previously filed an appeal of the restraining order that was still pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, but the judge’s decision to upgrade the order to a preliminary injunction appears to have rendered that appeal moot, or legally irrelevant….