Judge Indira Talwani blocked Donald Trump’s mail-ballot rule Friday evening — and the way she did it stranded the Justice Department’s emergency run at the Supreme Court.
The rule would have forced every election office in America to upload its mail voters — names and matching barcodes — into a Postal Service portal, and let USPS bounce whole batches of ballots for a single bad envelope. Talwani found the plaintiffs, led by the League of Women Voters and a coalition of states, likely to win outright: Congress never gave the post office that power.
The 24 hours before her order played like a sting. At Thursday’s hearing in Boston, DOJ attorney Michael Velchik opened with a threat — rule today, or the United States would “seek immediate emergency relief from the Supreme Court.” Talwani declined to be rushed. Then she took the government’s case apart on the record.
She made Velchik confirm the trap in his own words. Before the rule existed, the government said voters couldn’t sue because there was nothing to sue over. Once it existed, the government said complaints belong at a postal commission with 90 days to answer — “which is 20 days after the election,” Talwani said. Again, that is your position? “Yes,” Velchik said.