President Donald Trump’s emergency appeal aimed at limiting the use of mail ballots is poised to test a controversial, 20-year-old Supreme Court principle that was intended to avoid chaos before elections. The “Purcell principle” warns federal courts against making last-minute changes to voting rules.
Background
The principle has never before been weighed in a Supreme Court case involving a federal election policy like Trump’s effort to give the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security a hand in screening state voter rolls for potential non-citizen voters.
Trump’s executive order would require states to submit lists of eligible voters to the U.S. Postal Service, which would be barred from sending ballots to anyone not on those lists. It would also require states to use tracking barcodes on ballot envelopes.
Implications
The case could have practical implications for how the court handles the flood of litigation that will inevitably crash onto its docket this fall, and ahead of the 2028 presidential election. A group of Democratic states challenging Trump will respond to the president’s emergency appeal on Monday.
The Supreme Court could then rule later this month. The court’s conservatives have framed the Purcell principle as a check on the power of federal courts to interfere in elections that are run by states.
Original reporting: KOAT Albuquerque — read the source article.
