Trump Blasted as Judge Says She’s “Flabbergasted” by Plan to Deny Mail in Ballots to Voters

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1:29Michael Popok:We got some confusion at the United States Supreme Court involving mail-in ballots with an emergency application in the last 10 hours filed by the Trump administration to try to have the Supreme Court rule that they're allowed to use the Postal Service to deny mailing and delivering mail-in ballots to you and me and deny delivering those mail-in ballots to election officials. as mail-in ballots are already going out today, Friday, in North Carolina. What will the United States Supreme Court do? Why did Donald Trump bypass Judge Talwani in Massachusetts and the First Circuit Court of Appeals and try to lob in an emergency appeal?

2:11Michael Popok:And what does it mean that the Supreme Court has given the states and the public interest groups until Tuesday at 10 a.m. to respond to the emergency application as ballots are already being mailed out in Alabama and North Carolina. Is that a good sign to protect mail-in ballots from the evil clutches of the Postal Service? I'm Michael Popok. You know where you are. It's Labor Day weekend. You must be on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Take that minute, take that finger of yours, and hit the free subscribe button. All right, let's get to the mail-in ballots issue. Judge Telwani in Massachusetts federal court has two cases united in front of her, one brought by Democratic states, one brought by public interest groups like the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and the ACLU.

3:04Michael Popok:She had a hearing on Thursday, yesterday, about whether she was going to extend her temporary restraining order, blocking the Postal Service rules, creating two components to screw with mail-in ballots. A brand new, never tried before, first time ever created in just months, citizenship voter check portal in which the Postal Service is requiring states who have no obligation in the Constitution to do this to supply them with citizenship data to build on the fly a portal to double check or they won't deliver the mail, the mail-in ballot mail. So the post office is going to decide who lives or dies in terms of your ballot.

3:52Michael Popok:If they don't like the looks of the envelope or they don't like the way it's scanned through or they can't find your name because you got married or something else or there's a typo in your name, you and maybe hundreds of thousands of other people aren't going to get their ballot. And it's certainly the election office isn't going to get their ballot. That's all the evil genius of Donald Trump in a March executive order now implemented with a final rule from last week by the Postal Service. Trump weaponizing the Postal Service to deny you and me our mail-in ballots. That is what was at stake in front of Judge Talwani.

4:27Michael Popok:She granted the states and the other entities a temporary restraining order blocking until about September the 10th the implementation of that postal service rule, the creation of the portal. All of that should have stopped. Now, in the meantime, a whistleblower has come forward deep inside the Trump administration, who gave effectively testimony directly to the judge with a filing that said in 20 pages that the Postal Service has created a purposefully error-filled process in order to deny mail-in ballots. Now, this whole mail-in ballot scheme is likely to backfire for Donald Trump. He thinks he's targeting blue states and Democratic and independent voters.

5:18Michael Popok:But rural voters, which is part of his base, generally vote by mail. So if anything, it would be a wash for every vote he suppressed of the blue people. He would be suppressing the vote of the rural red people. This is the country Donald Trump has created. And so even his schemes, goals are scatterbrained and harebrained. But now it's up at the United States Supreme Court. Why? While Judge Talwani held her hearing yesterday on whether to convert her temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction to continue to block that regulation all the way through to the end of the trial. Right?

6:00Michael Popok:The First Circuit Court of Appeals, they took an appeal, the Trump administration, waiting to see if the First Circuit in Boston would block Judge Talwani while they were waiting and they didn't get their answer. They took an emergency application, which they've just filed, and I'll read to you from it, led by John Sauer, Donald Trump's former criminal defense appellate lawyer, now the Solicitor General of America. and they asked the court, comes up through Ketanji Brown Jackson, to decide on an emergency basis and to grant an administrative stay right now so that the ballots going out today in North Carolina are effectively stopped.

6:41Michael Popok:I mean, they're not in the right envelopes. They don't have the zebra codes and they're going out. Here's what John Sauer told the Supreme Court in his filing. It says that Judge Talwani has partially nullified the Postal Service's efforts to address the risk that the federal mails will be used to perpetrate voter fraud, a particularly pernicious species of fraud that dilutes the votes of lawful voters, prevents election results from reflecting the will of the American people, and undermines public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process. The only entity that has undermined public confidence in the electoral system is Donald Trump.

7:24Michael Popok:There is no pernicious widespread voter fraud. There's always voter fraud in every country, but it's not outcome determinative. We're talking about voter fraud statistically that has been determined to be, listen to this number, 0.0001%. 0.0001 % of ballots cast are fraudulent. And for various reasons, you vote not because you're not a citizen. you're voting in two different districts at the same time. You use a mail-in ballot and you show up to vote. You vote by accident twice, whatever it may be, a dead person voting. When you take it down to non-citizens voting, it's even smaller percentage.

8:01Michael Popok:It's probably 0.00001%. And yet we're going to make sure that your and my legitimate mail-in ballot, I never get the ballot in order to cast it. It never gets delivered to the election office to be counted. our sacred right to vote is undermined. Why? Because Donald Trump wants to undermine public confidence in the vote because he always gets his ass kicked, as does MAGA, when mail-in votes come in and he doesn't like it. That's where we're at. Now, the determination by the Supreme Court, this is very interesting because they did not enter an immediate stay. Could happen later today. I might have to update my reporting.

8:46Michael Popok:But as of right now, as of this morning on Friday, they have not administratively stayed Judge Talwani's decision. So that decision is still a block for now. As we wait for her to rule probably today, tomorrow, maybe Monday or Tuesday on her preliminary injunction hearing that she just held. Spoiler alert, she's going to enter the preliminary injunction. The question is the timing of when it comes out and that it will join back up, I guess, with the United States Supreme Court. They've turned to the states and the public interest groups and they said, give us your response, not over the weekend, not on Labor Day Monday, on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

9:29Michael Popok:OK, Tuesday, 10 a.m. It's going to be a lot of feverishly hardworking public interest lawyers trying to protect our vote between today and Tuesday. but mail-in ballots are already being mailed out in a couple of states including north carolina today so they didn't say well we're gonna we're gonna hit the stay button we're gonna hit the stay button and we're gonna block and give donald trump and john sower what he wants they said no we'll see on tuesday and not even and off of tuesday some amount of days after the supreme Court will make a ruling. I think, this is my analysis, I think that's a very good sign that they're not going to allow Donald Trump, at least for the midterms, which are less than 60 days away, to use the Postal Service to decide, thumbs up or thumbs down, who gets a ballot and who doesn't get a ballot.

10:27Michael Popok:I think the fact that they put the timing of the briefing off until Tuesday indicates sort of where their head is at. They don't see this as an emergency for this particular midterm election. Are they going to ultimately let the post office for the 2028 election do some sort of envelope design management? Maybe, maybe. Here's what, here's how John Sauer, Talk about gaslighting. Here's how John Sauer in his brief put what's really at stake here. Again, this is the post office requiring states to give them the names and voter registration for citizens to create a build it while they fly it portal to double check through scanning and use certain envelopes or they're not going to deliver your ballot to you or deliver it back to the election office.

11:22Michael Popok:That's what they're doing. Here's how he describes it. Contrary, this is on page two, over to three. Contrary to the claims of the district court, that's Judge Talwani, and the respondents that the Postal Service is trying to federalize the rules for mail-in voting, the Postal Service's final rule imposes only modest envelope design. Oh, it's just interior design for envelopes. and addressee information requirements for federal election ballots sent via U.S. mail. Specifically, the rule creates standardized design and review requirements for ballot envelopes that build on practices the post office has long recommended, like using barcodes.

12:03Michael Popok:The rule ensures that states remain responsible for determining voter eligibility and eligibility to vote by mail, and it does not dictate ballot content. The rule thus plainly does not seize control of states' administration of elections. But it's saying that if the states choose to use the federal mail system, then they got to succumb to whatever crazy Rube Goldberg contraption the post office creates in order to sow chaos in mail-in ballots. No, post office should be ministerial act only. Give me mail, deliver mail. I mean, I hate to put it in caveman terms, but that should be it. Not, let me see it.

12:47Michael Popok:I'm going to stay with the caveman thing. Let me see envelope. Oh, envelope has a fold in corner. Envelope has a typo in name. Envelope doesn't match a married name of person. I send entire batch of 10 ,000 ballots back to state disenfranchising people. That's what's happening. That's what the whistleblower, that's before Judge Talwani, that's what the whistleblower testified to in his anonymous submission as a person deep inside the federal government. So we got a lot of things to keep an eye on. I don't think the administrative stay is coming. If it does, I'll update you. So I think the Supreme Court's going to let this roll out until Tuesday as ballots go out in Alabama and North Carolina, and that's a good thing.

13:36Michael Popok:Secondly, I think Judge Talwani is going to rule, may not be Friday, but sometime between Friday and before Tuesday, she is going to rule. Could be in an hour or two, and I'll come back on and tell you. That's two. That's on the preliminary injunction, crediting, I'm sure, the whistleblower as part of her findings. And so those are the things, the Talwani preliminary injunction coming out and its findings and Tuesday's filing with the Supreme Court. Then they have a few days to decide whether they're going to grant a stay and whether they're going to block Talwani. And that'll probably be sometime next week.

14:16Michael Popok:Every day and every hour, that candle is burning down towards midterm elections. You know, and the closer we get, the more the Supreme Court should walk away from trying to undermine voting and voting integrity between now and the midterm elections. They have a policy. They have a doctrine, right? It's called the Purcell Doctrine. The closer you get to an election, the less the Supreme Court is going to get involved. They find it a political matter. They don't want to change the rules of the road so close. We're really close now. I mean, we're at almost the 12th hour. We'll follow everything that they do.

14:52Michael Popok:Thanks for being here on Legal AF. I'm traveling, but I am reporting. Hit the free subscribe button. Help us to continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well.

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