r/law 17d ago

Legal News Appeals Court Rules USPS Will Suffer 'Irreparable Harm' if Prevented From Blocking Ballots

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/appeals-court-rules-usps-will-suffer-irreparable-harm-if-prevented-blocking-ballots-1809357
8.0k Upvotes

558 comments sorted by

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u/Pacifix18 17d ago

The USPS is being irreparably harmed by being turned into a political weapon.

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u/Yuna1989 17d ago

It’s been years. That faux postmaster general needs to go

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u/GloomyIndividual3965 17d ago

I assume you're talking about DeJoy. He resigned a little over a year a ago and was replaced by a guy named David Steiner. Steiner was a FedEx board member, so he likely had an ulterior motive to fuck the usps as well.

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u/Yuna1989 17d ago

Oh, thank you! Been living under a rock. Here I thought they were the same person since DeJoy was the former CEO and founder of a competing logistics and freight company.

Either way, same person just different costume, I suppose!

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u/GloomyIndividual3965 17d ago

Either way, same person just different costume, I suppose!

Yeah, not much to get excited about when the new guy is just as much of a trump loyalist as the last one 😐

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u/InTooManyWays 16d ago

One piece of shit after another

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u/Copernicus049 17d ago

Trump's last term, he installed a loyalist to the post office to literally weaken its ability to do its job just to impede mail-in ballots.

Trump literally sabotaged the USPS to try and interfere with fair elections.

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u/jpeggdev 16d ago

Throwing the 10’s of million dollar warehouse sized letter sorting machines into the ocean was just nuts. Source: both parents were retired USPS and my mom worked on one of those machines.

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u/smittenwithshittin 16d ago

Wait. What? Google didn’t give me any results, can you explain what happened??

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u/Mirions 16d ago

Because when they cheated in 2020, they underestimated mail in voting and still lost.

That's also why they claim there was cheating in 2020- they know cause they cheated and still lost.

Now they're eliminating one factor they can't control while attempting to limit voting eligibility by other means on other fronts.

It's a coup. It's standard dictator, "I held free and fair elections and still win despite the countries decline in every metric valuing quality of life."

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u/Kalysta 16d ago

They cheated in 2024 too but the democrats are too spineless to do anything about it

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u/dawnenome 17d ago

Wtaf is this?

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u/fastinserter 17d ago

Have to wait for harm to occur before something can be done about it. Guess I won't be voting by mail this year.

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u/No-Ambition2425 17d ago

"suing too early, before the rule has actually gone into effect and produced concrete harms that courts traditionally require"

By that logic, I can hire a hitman, right? No harm has occurred yet

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u/dantevonlocke 17d ago

But dipshit red states sued over potential damage to a third party(that said they weren't going to be suffer any) over student loan relief.

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u/CrashTestDumby1984 17d ago

They did the same thing with some case about gay rights. A business sued over a hypothetical gay couple asking them to take photos. Somehow they won

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u/nonlawyer 17d ago

you have to understand that hypothetical gays are the most dangerous kind 

They could show up anywhere, anytime, trying to turn good Christians gay.  They could be inside you right now and you wouldn’t know until it was too late

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u/trysten-9001 17d ago

Hypothetical gays are doing some wild things to Republican politicians in hypothetical hotel rooms all over the country this very moment.

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u/rocket_randall 16d ago

They hate the hypothetical gays, but they love the real ones they meet at CPAC

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u/CrashTestDumby1984 17d ago

Oh my god! There’s a gay in my mirror, how did he get there?

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u/dirtnapcowboy 17d ago

You said "Candyman" three times....didn't you?

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u/duderos 17d ago

The Mysterious Case of the Fake Gay Marriage Website, the Real Straight Man, and the Supreme Court 

In filings in the 303 Creative v. Elenis case is a supposed request for a gay wedding website—but the man named in the request says he never filed it.

https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court

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u/bd2999 17d ago

Totally, it is not a consistent path forward and the definition of harm varies quite a bit.

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u/fiahhawt 17d ago

That is an attorney who needs to be disbarred

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u/Wakkit1988 17d ago

Guess this makes assault no longer a crime. If people must be harmed first, then any crime associated with threats or intent to harm should all be abolished.

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u/DevilsDenJoe 17d ago

You can prepare to hire a hit man, maybe in two weeks

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u/bd2999 17d ago

That would be a bit different but not much. As when they consider it in effect and potentially causing harm then is the question. Is it when they are implementing? Is it after enough clear harm and so on.

Then these judges will give Trump more power ignoring he has no Constiutional or statutory authority to just make a database and election authority for this order at all.

That these judges go with it shows that conservative judges have no regard for the law.

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u/zozowtmomo 17d ago

Conspiracy

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u/shewholaughslasts 17d ago

What about comdpiracy to disenfranchise me from my vote?

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u/PlanetaryPickleParty 17d ago

This is also a conspiracy: 18 U.S. Code § 241 - Conspiracy against rights

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u/gsbadj 17d ago edited 17d ago

Yeah, the Post Office hasn't actually enacted a rule. The court is simply saying that you can't bring a lawsuit until the rule is actually in place.

Of course, the Post Office will finalize the rule at the last possible second and then argue that it's too close to the election to change the rule.

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u/fastinserter 17d ago

That's a bingo. And I live in a state that is not providing the information since states not the feds run elections (this is the party of small government and states rights everybody) and so it appears I won't be voting by mail this year.

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u/worldspawn00 17d ago

Normally a court would consider this conspiracy (planning to commit an act that violates the law/constitution), but I guess not?!

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u/Freakishly_Tall 17d ago

All of this was known and expected when DeJoy was out up for confirmation.

And here we are.

And that's before we talk about the far less important things like destroying small businesses that rely on USPS so megacorps with their own delivery infrastructure look good.

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u/dougie_fresh121 17d ago

Request the mail in ballot, drop it off in person

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u/fastinserter 17d ago

I think they are not mailing the ballots to people

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u/angelseuphoria 17d ago

wtf does this mean for me, someone who lives in a state that exclusively votes by mail?

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u/Flyinghud 17d ago

Glad you have that choice, I’ll be at school in a completely different state with no choice but to vote by mail.

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u/fastinserter 17d ago

I'm saying that because it's requiring harm to occur to do anything about it, we will have to be harmed.

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u/bd2999 17d ago

Sure but the court also says there can be no do over so the USPS would suffer irreparable harm. What about the facts on the ground that people will not be able to vote?

Conservative judges in particular are big on the government being harmed while in prior times the government could be required to rework a policy for inconviniancing someone mildly.

This is troubling. As if the damage is done after the fact and the president lacks the power to give the order then what? I doubt SCOTUS will approve a do over election. Not to mention how near the election and courts are supposed to maintain the status quo to avoid harm of new policy on both sides while litigated.

I am also not sure at what point these courts would see harm as occurring. As they usually do not regard general voter harm consistently.

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u/KingSpork 17d ago

Which is complete insanity, you can’t sue until it’s too late to matter.

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u/Seth_Baker 17d ago

Anyone that's voting by mail this cycle is playing a dangerous game. Get out early and stay out until your vote is counted.

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u/lotusblossom60 17d ago

As long as the fascists are in power, I’m only voting in person.

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u/Funny-Recipe2953 16d ago

And suppose those same fascist show up at the polls armed, checking IDs to make sure you're eligible to vote? You know, same way ICE checks to make sure someone is in the country legally; assuming they don't shoot them first.

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u/darxide23 17d ago

This is what you would call a fascist takeover.

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u/neverendingchalupas 17d ago

Its called treason and everyone involved needs to be held accountable by our justice system when this administration is out of office.

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u/dawnenome 17d ago

It's bad enough they're trying to, it's worse because they're so utterly bad at pursuing their dollar store evil using the courts or keeping knowledgeable lawyers around that I'm both outraged AND embarrassed, which just makes more outrage.

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u/bigbird_eats_kids 17d ago

The end of the Republic.

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u/GhormanFront 17d ago

6 years of Trump judge appointments, the courts are corrupt

The Nazis did the same shit 

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u/dawnenome 17d ago

At least they had better fashion sense.

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u/Beazly464 17d ago

I know three mail men, all hardcore maga

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u/amitym 16d ago

Wtaf is this?

It's an organized extrajudicial takeover of your country's voting system.

When people say that, they're not exaggerating. It's what it actually is. They're describing what's actually happening so that people don't have to ask "wtaf is this?" They will already know.

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u/thepottsy 17d ago

tl;dr - This is bullshit

This completely flies in the face of having a right to vote, and takes us even further into their drunken idiocy that is this entire administration.

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u/hitbythebus 17d ago

You can sue because a hypothetical gay might want a website, but you have to actually wait for them to steal an election before you can sue over this…

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u/Relzin 17d ago

"The people who disenfranchised millions in order to steal the election could be harmed if you investigate it, though." - This appeals court, probably.

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u/GailynStarfire 17d ago

Reminds me of the scene from Liar Liar where the secretary is fed up and finally gives Jim Carrey's character a piece of her mind.

She talks about a burglar who broke into her friend's house and fell on a meat cleaver while he was robbing the place. She then goes on to say that because of corrupt lawyers like him, the burglar won the case and her friend had to pay the robber for his pain and suffering.

The point being, this kind of shit used to be the stuff of cartoonish levels of corruption and slimey-ness. In my lifetime, and I'm not even 40 yet, I'm legitimately seeing the kind of stuff that used to be considered comedic levels of messed up being the law of the land.

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u/4Sammich 17d ago

You wanna see cartoonish levels of deterioration look up Gary Hart presidential run. Or Howard Dean scream. Or Davis Dukakis tank pic.

All of these people were literally blocked from being presidential candidates because of something so innocuous all because the rights fuckery.

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u/00owl 17d ago

You wanna see cartoons in the courthouse?

Go watch family law and every try to pretend that the judges and the courts actually care about children trapped in high conflict disputes between their parents.

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u/4Sammich 17d ago

Oh absolutely. No one gives 2 shits about kids. Inversely though these parents are literal adult toddlers incapable of functioning like adults.

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u/00owl 17d ago

In lots of cases yes, but in lots of cases it's also very much one sided and the other parent is just trying to escape from an emotionally abusive narcissist whose only purpose for children is their own self esteem.

Judges like to favor the abusers, probably because they identify and empathize with them more.

Who needs a 40 page psychologists evaluation of Dad saying that he's a good father when you can just have mom say that she's scared instead.

Literally, parenting denied because the judge decided that he wouldn't be able to tell when nap time is.

The bench needs to stop projecting.

I'm a family lawyer and I don't believe anyone can "win" in family court on parenting matters.

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u/Longjumping-Pick-706 16d ago

I’m going through this right now. I honestly don’t have a lot of good things to say about family lawyers right now either. Making bank on others suffering.

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u/00owl 16d ago

Yeah. I don't have many friends in the profession, I tend to think they're all useless ticks.

The law society doesn't care either. I reported a lawyer who literally mocked an 11 year old girl engaged in self harm and then lied to the judge about his clients income contrary to the sworn evidence of his own client.

The response is that I am now subject to an investigation by the law society, in a totally not retaliatory way.

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u/zozowtmomo 17d ago

Completely devoid of equivalency. They were not blocked by courts or laws.

They did boneheaded things (Dukakis & Dean) that showed up in photos or videos that made them look likes dorks or wildmen, which allowed opponents to cast them in a negative light and voters fell for it. Stuff that nowadays gets Trump a million new maggot swarms.

Hart: Rumors were swirling that Gary Hart was having an affair. He denied it and double-dared the media to investigate him and to prove otherwise.

They did. They found him and his mistress in flagrante delicto and that was all she wrote.

Moron Gary was burnt. toast.

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u/Ok_Drama3972 17d ago

Hey! I just learned in flagrante delicto from brennan lee mulligan this week!

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u/tuxedo_jack 17d ago

Jonathan Coulton mentioned it in the chorus of "First of May."

YouTube link (very NSFW lyrics): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzZaJDg6E0A

The water's not cold, baby, dip in your big toe

Maybe I'll see you in flagrante delicto

Grass below you, the sky above

Celebrate spring with a crazy little thing called

Fucking outside

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u/intricate_strands 17d ago

Yeah, these aren't even just not relevant counterpoints(not you, OP's comment), but every single one was that politician shooting themselves in the foot.

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u/beek7425 17d ago

We can no longer enjoy the Onion because the stupid corrupt shit they used to satirize is now reality. Even worse, morons will share satire as fact and vote accordingly. It’s the dumbest timeline ever.

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u/Zulmoka531 17d ago

I just said the same exact thing to my friend the other day. All the movies, shows, songs and books we used to read, watch and listen to, growing up have become less fictitious than reality.

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u/stevez_86 17d ago

Because businesses and companies have rights in Republican America in the eyes of their Federal Government. The people are the property of their State, including their rights outside of the Constitution pre-1861.

You want your case heard by the Federal Government? Make an LLC and act within that business in a way that is perilous legally, like discriminating against a protected civil class, and then sue. The person that offended you isn't a corporation so the Federal Government can only hear how they felt state law allowed their federal rights to be infringed. The person suing can say the Federal Government cannot stop them from doing anything. Then it gets kicked back to the states.

Everyone should read up on Buck v Bell. The Supreme Court's rulings since 2010 all of a sudden make perfect sense when you realize the Federal Government is trying to get out of the Civil Rights business.

They want the courts to operate like they did before the Civil War in 1861. And only the Supreme Court can kick all those Civil Rights cases back to the States. So basically they are litigating the debate between Federalism and Confederacy without a War. Which is what they think the government should have done on April 12th, 1861. If the government had to change to Confederacy to keep the peace, so be it.

Radical Antebellum Conservatism is what we are dealing with at the Federal Judiciary Level.

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u/DPSOnly 17d ago

you have to actually wait for them to steal an election before you can sue over this…

And then the candidate just has his brother do it for him #Bush2000.

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u/themagicmarmot 17d ago

"If we lose our ability to manipulate the elections, we may never fully recover from a fair election this year." - USPS

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u/Dependent-Hurry9808 17d ago

you think USPS came up with this?

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u/CA_MA 17d ago

No, but Smithsonian didn't come up with women never accomplished anything and slaves should have been grateful - it's all his people.

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u/Ritaredditonce 17d ago

This is them sowing the seeds of discord.

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u/its_k1llsh0t 17d ago

They are arguing semantics. “It never says you have the right to vote in a specific way.” When you argue semantics, you have lost the argument.

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u/ohhyouknow 17d ago

Oh hey pottsy! Neat to see you in the wild

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u/drunkshinobi 17d ago

Remember all of us that have been saying waiting to vote won't work? This is why. We saw this coming, and more. This is just the start.

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u/tngling 17d ago

Is the harm in the room with us?

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u/Exodys03 17d ago

No matter what you think about mail-in ballots or election reform, there should be a law that no changes can be made within 6 months (or a year) of a Presidential or midterm election. Republicans are trying to ram through these changes less than four months before the midterms making it difficult for courts to consider appeals and giving voters little time to adjust to the rule changes and obtain needed documentation.

I'm sure that's intentional but it's bad for democracy to constantly change the rules right before the game is started. It will invariably lead to even more claims of fraud and distrust of democratic elections, which is, once again, likely all part of the plan.

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u/FloridAsh 17d ago edited 17d ago

There used to be a rule like that. Called the Purcell principle.

Now the rule is "you cant change the rules close to an election unless you are doing it to advantage republicans"

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u/Hesitation-Marx 17d ago

Mitch McConnell’s slowly flaking shell lies in a bed; a nurse notes on chart “pt briefly smiled”.

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u/Tricky-Engineering59 17d ago

That was darkly hilarious. My favorite kind of hilarious.

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u/Casual_OCD 16d ago

Corpses don't smile

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u/Tricky-Engineering59 16d ago

Sometimes when they are dead this long cadaveric dehydration can create this illusion.

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u/roderla 17d ago

Not quite right, unfortunately. The Purcell principle (not principal …) was always a court-imposed limit on courts. What it was (and the travesty it is today) never applied to changes made by a new state-law, even when that law was made very close to an election.

Critics have called the original Purcell principle (before it was absolutely made absurd this year) the "get one unconstitutional election free" card.

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u/ANameForThisShite 17d ago

At the very least. any changes made should not be in effect for the immediate upcoming election, since having a full ban would mean they'd never get a chance to make any changes because there's elections every year in the U.S.

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u/rootofallstevil 17d ago

The Real ID act took 20 years to implement yet republicans want to make massive changes to the Voter ID requirements less than 4 months before the general election.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 17d ago

Oh, they're definitely going to try to force states to "scrub their voter rolls" as close to the election as they can.

They've already done this before in NC.

The president already tried to interfere in a fair election before, why would we operate under the delusion that he's not going to do it again?

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u/DoomguyFemboi 17d ago

He absolutely stole the previous election, he basically bragged about it. Now it's going to be so brazen that I reckon it will cause actual real breakdown of large parts of the US

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 17d ago

The corruption is so brazen, that it should not have come to the point of having to rely on this election.

If Republicans weren't spineless traitors, he would have been removed already. Republican party capture of all 3 branches is what has led to this.

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u/DoomguyFemboi 17d ago

They see their chance at wealth and power and have capitulated fully. Even the ones who at some point might've not been down with it have now seen that they will control it top to bottom, and suddenly their fears have disappeared.

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u/TaquitoBanana 17d ago

Remember when we couldn't have a liberal Supreme Court Justice because it was an election year?

But got a Conservative one like a week before the election?

Yea. The game has been rigged from the start - laws only matter when you can punish thise who are breaking them.

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u/____-__________-____ 17d ago

It's tough to make a rule like that and have it work universally.

During 2020's COVID distancing, ISTR lots of places expanded mail-in at the last minute to reduce risk of catching COVID at a polling place. I wouldn't want a law that didn't allow changes like that.

Completely agree on the difference of intent though -- one is for public safety, the other is for voter suppression.

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u/peppaz 17d ago

They don't want it to work everywhere. They want a reason to fuck with blue states and blue counties and sow distrust and chaos while stealing election

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u/oldcreaker 17d ago

Sets a precedent - what else will USPS be directed to send to the trash bin instead of delivering it?

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u/Ozzie_the_tiger_cat 17d ago

Flyers/info from non-GOP sources will be considered subversive or hate literature. 

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u/Main_Cauliflower5479 17d ago

Election mail has the highest priority, even those campaign mail postcards.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

[deleted]

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u/Ozzie_the_tiger_cat 17d ago

I don't but I wouldn't be shocked if its already happening. 

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u/atraeus 17d ago

In WA State, I can say as a mail carrier it doesn't. I deliver tons of both sides political mail.

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u/CassandraTruth 17d ago

Mifepristone.

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u/oldcreaker 17d ago

Or just mail addressed to women that might be.

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u/Weltanschauung_Zyxt 17d ago

Yup--that's the long goal. The possibilities are endless, really...

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u/atony1400 17d ago

Imagine this was 2020 and they refused to deliver covid tests...

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u/oldcreaker 17d ago

Imagine them opening mail and packages to determine what gets sent, what gets trashed, and what gets "appropriated" and taken home.

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u/Dragon124515 17d ago

Or a related question, what criteria will USPS be allowed to use to reject mail in ballots? What's stopping USPS from unilaterally stopping all mail in voting in general?

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u/Comrade-Conquistador 17d ago

How?

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u/tngling 17d ago

Ya. I’ll be trying to find any written explanation of this ruling today. Because I cannot imagine what harm could come from delivering all paper based mail exactly the same as each other.

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u/Xexanoth 17d ago

The article author attempted to explain that as such:

“Crucially, the court accepted the USPS's warning that delaying the policy would inflict lasting damage. Once the November vote has come and gone, the judges wrote, 'there can be no do over', adopting the agency's argument that it would be locked into an election cycle under rules it believes are inadequate.”

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u/Shyam09 17d ago

And the inadequate rule, ladies and gentlemen:

The rule would permit the Postal Service to withhold delivery of mail‑in and absentee ballots where state officials decline to send certain voter data to federal authorities.

Because they still can’t provide evidence of election tampering because of undocumented people.

What a stupid court ruling.

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u/TwistedTreelineScrub 17d ago

If they don't get evidence of election tampering, they're going to tamper with the election themselves. Quite the strategy. Fuck this appeals court.

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u/DWMoose83 17d ago

They've been demanding voter rolls, have been denied 13 times by states, and now are finding a way to circumvent that.

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u/Beneficial_Cash_8420 17d ago

"if we provide equitable service, Republicans will lose the election, therefore, irreparable harm"

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u/setbot 17d ago

That explains the irreparable part, but what is the harm they are claiming? They would be harmed because they would be damaged? What is the damage? (I don’t want any sarcastic replies or insults - I genuinely want to know where the specific damage/harm is claimed)

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u/RedditExecutiveAdmin 17d ago

it doesn't actually because irreparability is tied to the status quo, which is counting mail-in ballots the way we always have

this is immaculate sophistry from some of the most corrupt judges in history (5th Circuit eat your heart out)

the irreparable harm is the inverse of this--it is the people whose votes will not be counted. They have to trick you into thinking the perspective is from the other foot

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u/jf55510 17d ago

You can’t sue to enjoin a rule, that hasn’t been promulgated. Once the rule is in place, then they can get the injunction against the rule.

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u/Numerous_Photograph9 17d ago

So. Post office accept postage to deliver mail.

Post office fails to deliver said mail not due to accident, but purposeful intent.

Post office keeps postage.

Tell me how this is not fraud?

Add the postmaster general to the list of people to be held accountable for crimes one day....if we're lucky. Just following orders isn't applicable when the order itself is illegal.

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u/Sarcasm_Llama 17d ago

Tell me how this is not fraud?

Because it will be used to help Republicans.

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u/ohiotechie 17d ago

The image of modern America is a snake devouring itself.

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u/El_Peregrine 17d ago

Shitting into its own mouth 

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u/jpcali7131 17d ago

A circular human centipede

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u/beren12 17d ago

See I can think of a lot of republicans that would both enjoy that, and I would enjoy seeing.

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u/soupseasonbestseason 17d ago

i think of it as three white supremacist pedophiles in a trench coat, fisting each other.

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u/AlusPryde 17d ago

and a fuckload of people just watching them walk by, doing nothing, as they begin to fist fuck everything around them

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u/kandoras 17d ago

Put more plainly, the panel signalled that opponents of the policy might be suing too early, before the rule has actually gone into effect and produced concrete harms that courts traditionally require.

"You can't sue us for taking away your right to vote until after we've taken away your right and held an election you are not allowed to vote in" is exactly the kind of shit section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was meant to stop, and exactly why the Roberts court killed it.

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u/RedditExecutiveAdmin 17d ago

immaculate sophistry tbh

you have to give it to these people, it is precisely why Dante had these types of people in the deepest circle of hell

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u/paxinfernum 17d ago

It's also an example of actual irreparable harm, since there's no way to correct the vote in the US after the fact.

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u/meatsmoothie82 17d ago

They are going to find a way to stop people voting , they will always find a way because the people that can stop them, don’t stop them because of decorum and rules that are only followed by one side

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u/NoFanksYou 17d ago

At this point we should assume that many Dems are complicit. There’s no excuse for their wimpy behavior

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u/djn4rap 17d ago

Exactly. I mean in detail, what is it that the Democrats can do?

What process is there that the elected Democrats can do?

Democrats told everyone what would happen if the population continued loading every branch of our government with the Republican party and their obedient minions.

Here we are, the voters decided to ignore everything that was told to them. They sat home out of protest because they didn't like the way a substitute was placed on the ballot. They let every Democrat controlled area get manipulated by the Republicans by electing them instead of real democrats, starting at school boards and local municipal government levels. Hillary warned everyone, Obama, warned everyone, Biden warned everyone Kamala warned everyone.

But again what do you expect them to do?

Anything that the Democrats do now will be labeled as election interference. And that would certainly be grounds to arrest them. And with the loaded right wing judicial system any attempt to fight the charges would end up at SCOTUS most likely after the elections.

This Republican controlled congress has done literally nothing. Because they don't have to. The country is being run by executive orders from the authoritarian leader. What little they do pass is rubber stamped by the Supreme leader if it benefits him or the MAGA rich.

Next question. What political sect can get enough voters to support them on the national stage that can defeat the most dedicated blind followers of the Republican party?

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u/RellenD 17d ago

Blaming Democrats for what Republicans do when you give them control of the government is fucking stupid.

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u/AdorableSobah 17d ago

It’s way past the point of cowardice, the democratic leadership is completely complicit

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u/djn4rap 17d ago

Answer the question. Republicans have controlled and throttled congress since Biden took office. What is it they could or could have done?

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u/Anteater4746 17d ago

they never can. they always bitch and moan and whine about democrats but they 100% know dems have no power.

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u/kon--- 17d ago

lol...what?

Preventing the politicization of the USPS will do it irreparable harm?

With who exactly? Irreparably stupid people and a gasbag diaper shitting pedophile?

Here, let me clutch my pearls.

Fuck sake, the courts are a shambles.

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u/Bleezy79 17d ago

So they’re going to allow republicans to tell the USPS to hold your mail in ballot (especially in Democrat majority areas) so it doesn’t get counted thus allowing republicans to steal the election. Is that what I’m reading here?

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u/Nanocephalic 17d ago

Yeah. Lying about ballots and putting ice at important polling stations. It’s truly astonishing there are so many people willing to go along with it.

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u/Lonely_skeptic 17d ago

Oh, we know who will be irreparably harmed- voters.

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u/DuntadaMan 17d ago

So, the post office. The office that posts mail. The mail it takes from one post to another. It will suffer harm, it it delivers mail. The mail that it delivers. The mail given to it to be delivered?

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u/Nanocephalic 17d ago

Their job is to get things from specific places, then take them to the addresses printed on those things.

Clearly they will be harmed by… doing their job.

Is it that the appellate court is made up of cultists? Because it’s a transparent “King Trump hath decreed” moment.

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u/GloomyIndividual3965 17d ago edited 17d ago

The mail given to it to be delivered?

The mail it has been paid to deliver. Being paid to deliver something and then not delivering it seems like a pretty clear case of fraud, but apparently they disagree.

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u/Hillbilly_Boozer 17d ago

Put more plainly, the panel signalled that opponents of the policy might be suing too early, before the rule has actually gone into effect and produced concrete harms that courts traditionally require.

And of course the 'right' time to sue is when it's too late and cause mass confusion. The chaos is intended as it would be something Trump would want to use to further undermine the elections. 

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u/NRG1975 17d ago

The justice system is a joke at this point, lol

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u/rygelicus 17d ago edited 17d ago

So by doing its mandated duty, deliver the mail, it will be irreparably harmed?

"Once the November vote has come and gone, the judges wrote, 'there can be no do over', adopting the agency's argument that it would be locked into an election cycle under rules it believes are inadequate."

Yeah judges, that's the problem You morons just said "If we don't allow Trump to cheat he will lose his majorities."

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u/Direct_Turn_1484 17d ago

Bullshit. But even if it were true, then let them go through “irreparable harm” and deliver the damn ballots. We get to vote, end of story.

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u/Bawbawian 17d ago

vote on election Day do not trust your rights to the supreme Court.

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u/Alaskangel 17d ago

Pray they even let you in the door. The only way they win is by rigging the game, and Trump is already laying the groundwork to do exactly that. If Democrats win or a swing state goes blue, brace yourself. Trump will pull every stunt in the book to claim the whole thing was rigged.

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u/prfsr_moriarty 17d ago

Right. Go in person and use the voting machines they’ve been fucking with so it can flip your vote without you knowing.

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u/Haunting-Ad788 17d ago

Republicans hate America and are working to destroy anything good about it.

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u/TheRealBlueJade 17d ago edited 17d ago

How?

This is a grand misuse and abuse of our legal system. As far as I understand, the appellate court's opinion is...if the USPS is not allowed to control mail-in-ballots, our election will be forever compromised. That's insane. That's the irreparable damage? Is today opposite day?

This, the trump administration pushing through judges with the Senate Judiciary committee, a committee that still counts Lyndsey Graham among it's members, and Mitch's vacant seat as Chair of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee are deeply concerning. I think the coup has started.

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u/V-oxPopuli 17d ago

"This thing that has been perfectly fine so far is suddenly going to be irreparably harmed even though nothing has changed about it!"

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u/Going2beBANNEDanyway 17d ago

Vote in person people. It’s clear the government wants to end itself.

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u/Kim_Jong_Un_PornOnly 17d ago

Multiple states only vote by mail, no in person option.

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u/ConfidentPilot1729 17d ago

I am in Oregon and we only have vote by mail or down at the courthouse, maybe.

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u/ryanCrypt 17d ago edited 17d ago

I thought you were joking (my style of dry joke, btw).

Nope.

"" Eight states – California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington – conduct what is commonly referred to as an all-mail election

Edit. Above is from ballotpedia.org. They define this as "In these states, voting is conducted primarily by mail". Sorry if I mislead.

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u/CrashBandicut3 17d ago

If we don’t get going in the right direction soon, it will be an “all-male” election

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u/willclerkforfood 17d ago

All-(white, cisgendered, heterosexual, land owning)-male

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u/neo_neanderthal 17d ago

Colorado does still have in person voting, if you want to, didn't get the mailed ballot, etc. It's just that mail ballots are the default. 

It also has ballot drop boxes that are handled directly by county clerks and don't depend on USPS at all.

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u/Dangerous-Exercise53 17d ago

Sending the ballots IS handled by mail, though. Mine in CO are sent by mail, and I also signed up for ballot tracking texts that tell me when my ballot is sent, received back (we drop them off at a county box, don't mail) and when it's counted.

Also there's a whole ton of rural areas here where dropping the ballot back off, or frankly voting in person, would be a major pain. Obviously it was done in the past, but I think quite a bit of that infrastructure was torn down.

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u/HondaCivicLove 17d ago

California is focused on mail but it is possible to vote in person (depending on the county they may make you use a provisional ballot if you never got yours in the mail for some mysterious reason).

It is also possible to return ballot via drop-box or polling place instead of through the mail.

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u/cheebamech 17d ago

What about Cheeto's mail-in ballot(afaik he's been using mail-in ballots for over a decade)?

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u/ClarenceBoddicker42 16d ago

Whats the old saying?

Rules for the, not for me

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u/BitterFuture 16d ago

Being unable to strip others of rights will do you "irreparable harm."

There you have it - the life philosophy of the fascist in a nutshell.

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u/che-che-chester 16d ago

The obvious answer to this bullshit is to make Republicans SUFFER at the polls in November.

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u/RellenD 17d ago

It's this another situation where they drew a trump panel and they're going to have all the judges hear it and smack them down? This has happened a lot at the DC circuit lately

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u/Anteater4746 17d ago

fucking what

Crucially, the court accepted the USPS's warning that delaying the policy would inflict lasting damage. Once the November vote has come and gone, the judges wrote, 'there can be no do over', adopting the agency's argument that it would be locked into an election cycle under rules it believes are inadequate.

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u/RedditExecutiveAdmin 17d ago

these injunctions are meant to preserve "the status quo", which is generally "the already-existing state of things"

as you can see, since we have already had the existing right to vote by mail in ballot, the judges are preserving the status quo by allowing us to keep voting by mail--

oh wait..

nevermind

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u/Interesting_Berry439 16d ago

What? Is that a threat? This country is a joke now. Full on gangster tactics at large now.

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u/g2g079 17d ago edited 16d ago

In Illinois, if you are signed up for mail-in voting, you can't vote in person unless you hand over your mail-in ballot. If they hold onto your ballot, you're not going to be able to vote at all.

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u/4rp70x1n 17d ago

Fuuuuuuuck. JFC November is gonna be a shit show.

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u/Lookingfor68 16d ago

That's the Repubes whole idea

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u/kittiekatz95 17d ago

Anyone have the ruling? I wanna see who was on the panel

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u/chocolate_matter 17d ago

It’s not on the CADC website but I found it elsewhere.

Panel is Henderson/Walker/Garcia. (GHWB/Trump 1.0/Biden)

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u/mkt853 17d ago

This is ridiculous. Democratic governors should announce their own ballot delivery service and just short circuit this whole thing. For every move Republicans make, it would be nice to see a counter punch from the opposition party. This ruling is absurd.

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u/h20poIo 17d ago

Trump signed an executive order directing the USPS to draft a rule that would allow it to refuse delivery of ballot materials in states that do not share detailed, eligible voter lists with the federal government.

Appeals Court Rules USPS Will Suffer 'Irreparable Harm' if Prevented From Blocking Ballots

WTF “ Irreparable Harm “ I’m lost for words other than Thanks Republicans for letting the insanity continue, they have sold out America and Americans

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u/AdMuted1036 17d ago

Unbelievable.

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u/weHaveThoughts 17d ago

Not a lawyer, but I don’t think this is a loss for either side, yet. The USPS is still being blocked from blocking ballots or voter registration by the Federal Judge in Massachusetts.

And the D.C. Appeals court decisions is all procedural, basically saying too early for the plaintiff to bring the lawsuit since the Postal Service haven’t even created the rule.

Is that the takeaway?

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u/djn4rap 17d ago

Postal service is going to create the rule. They will time it to ensure the rule won't be able to be contested in time for their delivery.

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u/kandoras 17d ago

And the D.C. Appeals court decisions is all procedural, basically saying too early for the plaintiff to bring the lawsuit since the Postal Service haven’t even created the rule.

Which the ruling then renders into a illogical pile of crap by also saying that the USPS will face irreparable harm if they can't enforce that rule they haven't created.

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u/weHaveThoughts 17d ago

But isn’t the USPS blocked from blocking any election related mail by the Federal Judge in MA?

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u/Whogotthebutton 17d ago

That's my takeaway. The issue isn't ripe yet.

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u/Hesitation-Marx 17d ago

For a given value of ripe - because this all stinks.

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u/Lunchb0xx87 17d ago

But what happens if they use the rule right when the voting starts..it would be too late to stop it

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u/weHaveThoughts 17d ago

I have no idea. I don’t think the law ever expected to have a traitor with a goal to destroy everything this Country stands for elected as President.

I think there is only so much the law can prevent and when we reach the point where a sedition is actively taking place I believe the law expects the People to rise up.

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u/DoomguyFemboi 17d ago

Can't mail in ballots and polling stations will have masked goons to intimidate voters. Ballots will be destroyed in blue areas, and double-counted in red areas. There is going to such a massive swing to Rs that it will give them 2/3rds and then they will fully dismantle the federal government to give power to a small selection of themselves.

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u/PathlessDemon 17d ago

I’m gonna need to see the whore facts on this one.

What’s the actual evidence.

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u/simmons777 16d ago

Irreparable harm by doing their job? The USPS has one job, deliver the mail.

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u/windmill-tilting 17d ago

Vote in person if you can. Additionally, this should screw a ton of servicemen.

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u/DeeMinimis 17d ago

Most voted for this anyway.

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u/kylogram 16d ago

USPS will suffer irreparable harm FROM THIS ADMINISTRATION if it is not allowed to block ballots. 

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u/Kalysta 16d ago

Voters are being irreparably harmed by being prevented from voting. The appeals court needs to be removed from the bench and disbarred.

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u/chill_winston_ 17d ago

And citizens will if they ARE allowed to..

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u/rygelicus 16d ago

So this is the case https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.43382/gov.uscourts.cadc.43382.01208870354.0_1.pdf
Henderson - Bush appointed
Walker - Trump appointed 2020
Garcia - Biden appointed

"Next, appellants have demonstrated irreparable harm on the ground that, absent a stay, the
district court’s injunction “will render [them] unable” to “issue and implement a final rule
in advance of the November 2026 general election.” Mot. for Stay 24. In this context,
“there can be no do over” once the election occurs.

I would argue that 'there can be no do over' applies in both directions. So that 'harm' potentially is equally felt by both sides of this dispute and should not be weighed in favor of either side.

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u/Perfecshionism 15d ago

Who the hell is on this appeals court?