President Biden's Postal Service Finalizes a Rule Letting It Refuse to Deliver Mail Ballots in States That Don't Hand Over Voter Lists, Even Though a Judge Already Blocked It

WASHINGTON — The Postal Service under President Biden issued a final rule this week tightening the terms on which it will carry mail-in ballots for November's elections, carrying out an executive order from the President that a federal judge has already enjoined, on the theory that a rule can be final, blocked and ready all at the same time.

The rule requires states to provide the Postal Service with lists of the voters who received mailed ballots and says the service will not deliver ballots in states that fail to meet its new standards, which is to say that the federal mail will carry a citizen's vote on the condition that the citizen's state has first filed the appropriate paperwork with the federal mail.

A federal judge in Boston blocked the Postal Service from adopting the rules earlier this year. The Postal Service responded by adopting them anyway, with the caveat that it would take no action to implement them unless a court lifts the injunction, a posture that attorneys described as compliance and election officials described as a loaded truck idling outside the courthouse.

Supporters of President Biden said the rule merely ensures that ballots go to eligible voters and that the agency is right to be ready should the courts agree. Opponents, who in previous years described any federal hand on state election machinery as a threat to democracy, now found the federal hand belonged to the other party and upgraded the threat to existential.

"Nothing has changed for voters," a Postal Service spokesman said, in a statement accompanying 95 pages of changes for voters.

The Press's postal desk notes that 'election integrity' and 'voter suppression' are the same rule read by different parties, and that which party reads it which way depends on who appointed the postmaster. At press time the rule was scheduled for publication on Wednesday, the injunction was scheduled to continue indefinitely, and the mailboxes were accepting everything but the point.