TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – A second federal judge ordered the U.S. Postal Service not to implement new vote-by-mail rules from the White House.
The D.C. judge made the ruling late Sunday night, and it is welcome news to Leon County’s supervisor of elections.
Mark Earley said the rules would be nearly impossible to follow with such short time until November’s election.
The rules require election officials to use new web portals, databases and envelope requirements, among other things. Earley said he’s not aware of any such portals live for Florida election officials to use right now.
“We don’t know how to upload it. We don’t have user access to upload it,” he said. “The system that would receive the uploads and disseminate that information all throughout the post office has not been designed or tested. There’s been no input from election officials across the nation, all with different file structures and things like that. This is just a catastrophe waiting to happen.”
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Despite his fears, Earley said he has been clear when talking to voters.
“I’ve been telling my voters, because a lot have been calling about this, that I am very confident that the mail ballot process will be handled exactly like it was in the 2024 elections,” Earley said. “That none of this will be implemented. I do have very hard and fast logistical problems that prevent this from happening anytime soon.”
The Supreme Court is poised to make the final call, so Earley is doing what he can to try to comply just in case.
He submitted the vote-by-mail envelope to a USPS design official, as would be required by the new rule. The official rejected the design, used in Leon County since 2024.
Earley said the “return service requested” line on the envelope was fractions of an inch too close to the return address. He successfully appealed that issue.
“With this rule barreling towards everyone here potentially and it being fought in the courts, in some ways it was almost good to be able to have an example for the world out there, at least for the nation, of why this rule had severe problems, just basic logistical problems,” he added.
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