Trump's mail-in voting restrictions blocked by a second judge

A second federal judge blocked President Donald Trump's administration from implementing a new US Postal Service rule that tightens mail-in voting requirements, even as the US Supreme Court weighs the administration's request to lift a separate order halting the same policy. Washington-based US District Judge Carl Nichols' decision late on Sunday comes as Trump's Republicans battle to retain control of both houses of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections. Trump, who falsely claims his 2020 presidential election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud, has for years called for restrictions on voting by mail though often votes by mail himself. Nichols granted a request from the Democratic Party and groups including the NAACP for a preliminary injunction blocking the rule, which they argued was an unlawful intrusion by the federal government into election administration. The judge, who was appointed by Trump during his first term in the White House, wrote that the new rule could make it harder for some people to vote by mail and that the new regulation exceeded the Postal Service's authority. "No statute grants the Postal Service the power to issue key parts of the rule," Nichols wrote. In a separate case, Boston-based US District Judge Indira Talwani blocked the rule on September 4 at the behest of Democratic-led states and voting rights groups.