NEW YORK – A federal judge on Sunday ordered a stay in the trial of President Donald Trump of the re-election campaign that sought to ban dropboxes and other changes to Pennsylvania’s post-balloting procedures.
The November 3 election promises to be the nation’s biggest test by postal ballot and the two major parties are locked in separate lawsuits that will shape how millions of Americans will vote this fall.
The Republican president has repeatedly said without proof that an increase in e-mail ballots would lead to an increase in fraud, even though Americans have long voted by mail.
There is perhaps no more consistent court case than the one in Pennsylvania, which Trump won in 2016 by less than 1 percentage point and is considered essential to his efforts for re-election.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
J. Nicholas Ranjan, U.S. District Judge for Western Pennsylvania, said the federal case brought by the Trump campaign would not proceed until similar lawsuits are settled in state courts or unless they are delayed.
The Trump campaign seeks to ban ballot drop boxes, which were deployed in the state’s last primary state and which allow voters to submit absentee ballots and bypass the U.S. Postal Service.
The Trump campaign claims the dropboxes were not explicitly authorized in a bipartisan bill passed by the state legislature last year that expanded the state’s balloting procedures.
The package also wants the abolition of the residency requirement for polling officers so that every voter in Pennsylvania could serve in that capacity at any polling station in the state.
The judge, a Trump nominee, said the suit involved state laws and he would first refer them to state courts.
“The court will apply the brakes on this lawsuit, and allow Pennsylvania state courts to weigh and interpret the state statutes that underlie the plaintiffs’ federal constitutional claims,” Ranjan said.
The Trump campaign says the ballot box invites fraud. The federal judge asked the campaign to provide evidence of actual fraud, but the campaign refused, claiming it did not have to win the case.
.
