Two months before a midterm election that could swing the nation's balance of power, Washington is poised to again sue over President Donald Trump's executive order to restrict voting through the U.S. Postal Service, the state's Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said this week.
The development comes as the U.S. Supreme Court this week lifted an injunction in a lawsuit that was brought by Washington and other states in opposition to the Trump administration plan to expand the U.S. Postal Service's ability to regulate election mail.
That plan would have the U.S. Postal Service spell out requirements for state election ballots and the return envelopes for election mail. The proposal would give it authority to hand out lists to states of who can vote, based off a list of U.S. citizens kept by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In June, Postmaster General David Steiner told members of Congress that under the plan, the Postal Service won't deliver election ballots in states that refuse to turn over their voter rolls to the federal government.
Democratic officials and good-government groups have decried those plans as an unconstitutional power grab, pointing to the U.S. Constitution's language giving states power over their elections.
Hobbs, a Democrat, expressed concern Tuesday about a proposal that seemed to be all but dead just a month ago.
In coordination with the attorney general’s office, we’re going to file another lawsuit," Hobbs said. "And that should generate another injunction, which should hopefully stick."
The proposed regulations still could be struck down in courts, and there's one other injunction still in place for now. But with an election rapidly approaching, states already are printing election mail. Washington state's return envelopes for the midterms already are printed, Hobbs said.
If the Trump plan becomes law, "we would have to, according to the rule, print new ones, destroy old ones,” he said. “That’s crazy because we start mailing (ballots) Oct. 16."
Military and overseas voters will get ballots even earlier, he added.
For Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh, that's not such a bad thing. Even before Trump, who himself votes by mail even as has sought to restrict the practice, some Republicans in Washington have been skeptical of the state's ability to maintain accurate voter rolls and have argued to see a return to in-person voting.
“The effect of the executive order is, ultimately, we force a reckoning of what I suspect is suboptimal management of voter rolls in this state,” Walsh said.
"Whatever thought experiment we do about where this leads, it’s all an improvement," he added. "Either we clean up our voter rolls or get back to more in-person voting."
This year's executive order comes after a similar order made by the president last year, which was blocked in courts. Trump has unsuccessfully pressured Congress to pass a plan to restrict mail ballots.
And the Trump administration has ended intelligence sharing with the states through the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, according to Washington state Elections Director Stuart Holmes. CISA used to help provide information on cyberattacks and other threats to American elections.
“They were told by their leadership that they were not able to continue attending those,” Holmes said, adding: "It’s concerning, the federal stuff cannot be replicated by other people."
In a prepared statement Monday, Attorney General Nick Brown said a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court "does not seem to recognize the grave threat the president’s actions pose for our democracy."
Brown added: “There is nothing hypothetical about his intent to illegally suppress legitimate votes. Fortunately, today’s decision does not bless the substance of the president’s actions, it simply says states must wait slightly longer to challenge them.”
In an interview last month, David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, contended that the president is “trying to seize unconstitutional powers to regulate elections.”
“So what we’re seeing is an administration desperate, perhaps out of fear of the voters, to try to seize the power over elections from the states,” said Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. “Authoritarians in other cultures have done this.”
Becker noted the Trump administration has continued to lose in the courts and in Congress to regulate voting, and he feels confident America's voting system has sufficient guardrails to protect itself.
Asked when he'll consider the November general election over and decided, Becker said, “I think probably Jan. 3, 2027, when Congress gets sworn in."
"If elections don’t go their way," said Becker, referring to the Trump administration, "I have no idea what efforts they might try to do to prevent duly-elected members of Congress from being seated. I don’t know what they will do to interfere with the counting and certification process.
As the election nears, Hobbs said he’s bracing for “what crazy thing is going to happen” either from the federal government or random acts.
“For example, a ballot box blowing up, a white powder incident, a major cyberattack,” he said. “It’s just so frustrating because it’s this particular moment in time that we rely on the federal government for support and coordination because of these threats. And instead, the federal government is spending its time to try and dismantle our election system.”
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