Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs announced Wednesday that Washington will join a multi-state lawsuit seeking to stop the United States Postal Service from implementing a new rule restricting how states send and receive mail-in ballots.
“It’s clear that the federal government is trying to take over our elections,” Hobbs said in the press release. “We are prepared to fight every step of the way to stop that from happening.”
Under the USPS’s new rule, states would be required to give the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies access to voter lists and adopt new ballot procedures before the USPS delivers ballots.
The USPS published the final rule Thursday. According to the secretary’s statement, it would take Washington 9 1/2 years to make all the changes mandated by the rule in order to get the more than 5 million mail-in ballots the state is set to send to voters this year.
According to the rule, if the states fail to provide the government with the information the new system demands or make the procedural changes, then the agency would refuse to deliver ballots.
On Monday, the United States Supreme Court lifted one of two injunctions filed by states blocking implementation of the USPS rule and other changes stemming from President Trump’s executive order given in March.
Secretary Hobbs said in his statement that he hopes raising another challenge to the new rule may delay its implementation in the midterms.