{"id":418610,"date":"2026-08-27T21:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418610\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T21:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:56:08","slug":"travis-county-joins-lawsuit-against-new-mail-in-voting-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418610\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis County joins lawsuit against new mail-in voting rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Travis County is joining a federal lawsuit<\/a> aimed at blocking the Trump Administration\u2019s new rules<\/a> for ballot-by-mail voting.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit challenges an executive order President Trump signed in March<\/a>, which requires the U.S. Postal Service to only deliver mail-in or absentee ballots to people enrolled on a \u201cstate-specific list\u201d of eligible voters. All outgoing mail-in ballots must be placed in envelopes with an official election logo and a unique barcode that can be tracked, among other specifications.<\/p>\n

\u201cConfusion is the point,\u201d Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado said. \u201cAnd unfortunately, it may be creating enough confusion that people just opt out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Limon-Mercado said the new rules also pose \u201csignificant operational costs and legal challenges\u201d for the county just three weeks before the first wave of mail-in ballots are scheduled to go out. She added that the clerk\u2019s office is still dealing with \u201cserious unresolved issues\u201d with the state\u2019s voter registration database, including having voters put in suspense<\/a> and eligible voters being deemed “noncitizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The executive order was initially blocked by a federal judge,<\/a> but that block was lifted this week after the Supreme Court ruled that the judge\u2019s injunction was filed prematurely.<\/p>\n

The ruling cleared legal hurdles for the executive order, but multiple lawsuits, including the federal lawsuit Travis County joined, could stop the order from being implemented before midterms.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit argues the new rules place election authority in the hands of the U.S. Postal Service \u2014 which is required to reject mail-in ballots that don\u2019t have a barcode that matches an eligible voter on an approved list \u2014 without approval from Congress.<\/p>\n

It was filed jointly with the city of Madison, Wis., and several advocacy groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Arizona Students Association and the Secure Families Initiative. They are represented by the Campaign Legal Center and the Democracy Defenders fund.<\/p>\n

Whether or not the executive order remains, Limon-Mercado said her advice to voters is apply for a mail-in ballot now, or vote in person.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf folks are on the fence about voting by mail or voting in person, maybe they’re unsure given the level of confusion that the Trump administration is injecting into the space \u2026 and they physically and geographically have the ability to vote in person, probably vote in person at this point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot for the November election is Oct. 23. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travis County is joining a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking the Trump Administration\u2019s new rules for ballot-by-mail voting.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,145817,145818,145820,394,2558,145819,145821],"class_list":["post-418610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-dyana-limon-mercado","tag-how-to-request-a-mail-in-ballot","tag-mail-in-ballot-voting","tag-travis-county","tag-trump","tag-trump-election-fraud","tag-vote-by-mail-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}