By Luc Cohen
July 1 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the U.S. Postal Service's proposed restrictions on mail-in voting, finding that they violated a settlement with a leading civil rights group that required expedited mail-in ballot handling.
The decision by Washington-based U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan marked the second defeat in the courts in as many weeks for U.S. President Donald Trump's push to severely restrict mail-in voting ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, with
his Republican Party locked in a tight battle to maintain control of both houses of Congress.
Trump has long said, without providing evidence, that mail-in voting is prone to fraud. The assertion is one pillar of his years-long campaign to undermine faith in U.S. elections, along with the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud.
The Postal Service in May proposed a rule requiring states to provide lists of voters and adopt new balloting procedures before the mail agency would make deliveries. If states did not comply, the Postal Service would refuse to deliver the ballots.
Sullivan, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, sided with the NAACP rights group, which argued that the new rule would run afoul of a 2021 legal settlement that required USPS officials to take "extraordinary measures" to ensure timely delivery of ballot mail through 2028.
Neither the USPS nor the Justice Department, which represents the administration in court, immediately responded to requests for comment.
Sullivan's ruling prevented the Postal Service from implementing the proposed regulations, which stemmed from Trump's March executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and requiring the USPS to only deliver ballots to voters on each state's approved mail-in ballot list.
In a separate decision on June 25, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked Trump from implementing the entire executive order ahead of the midterms.
The judge sided with a coalition of Democratic-led states in ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority in trying to overhaul procedures for elections, which since the republic's founding in 1789 have been run by states and local governments.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Franklin Paul and Cynthia Osterman)
