The request was procedural and the answer was not. Having lost before Judge Indira Talwani on June 25, the administration asked the First Circuit to pause her order while it appealed - which would have let the Postal Service begin implementing the March executive order on mail voting in the meantime.
On July 25 the court refused, 2 to 1 [1].
What the panel said about the order is broader than a scheduling decision. It 'directs unprecedented levels of involvement by federal officials in how states administer elections,' the ruling states, and 'plainly affects the Plaintiff States' sovereign power . . . to create and enforce a legal code' governing them [1]. That is a constitutional objection, not a technical one.
Three mandates remain blocked across 23 states and the District of Columbia: Intelligent Mail barcodes and logos on ballot envelopes, states submitting unredacted voter lists to the Department of Homeland Security, and eligibility verification routed through the SAVE database [1]. Two of the three are data-collection requirements pointed at the federal government rather than rules about running an election.
The dissent is worth noting precisely. Judge Joshua D. Dunlap, appointed by the president whose order was at issue, dissented in part - not in full [1]. A partial dissent from a friendly appointee is the narrowest available version of a win, and it did not carry the panel.
