WASHINGTON (AP) — Missouri appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to allow the use of new congressional districts backed by President Donald Trump in the fast-approaching midterm election.

The appeal comes after Missouri’s highest court blocked the new map and ordered a statewide vote in November on whether to keep or reject it.

It’s part of a national redistricting battle that Trump launched last year. Missouri’s new congressional boundaries were drawn to help Republicans win an additional seat and hold onto their slim House majority in November’s midterm elections.

The Missouri Supreme Court weighed in after redistricting opponents submitted over 300,000 petition signatures seeking to put the map to a vote of the people. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected the petition on primary Election Day, asserting that Missouri’s constitution doesn’t allow referendum petitions on congressional redistricting. He successfully defended his decision in a lower court, but on Thursday lost in front of the state’s highest court.

The court said the referendum petition effectively suspended the new districts, retroactive to last December, pending voter approval. Although the new districts were used in the August primary, Missouri’s top court said the previous districts enacted after the 2020 census must be used in the general election.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said no other court has ordered congressional maps after a primary but before a general election.

“No court in American history has ever given such an extraordinary remedy, which inflicts unprecedented chaos on Missouri,” her office wrote in the appeal. “Looking forwards, the State is genuinely unsure whether it can switch its governing congressional map in time to run a timely federal election.”

She asked the Supreme Court to halt the state court’s decision immediately.

State law sets a Tuesday deadline to make changes to the November ballot. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who hears appeals of case from the region, asked critics of the new map to respond to the appeal by Monday.

Backers of the referendum have said a statewide vote would give the state’s residents a voice in the process.

Missouri currently has six Republicans and two Democrats in the U.S. House. The new maps reconfigured a Kansas City-based district held by longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.

Congressional districts typically are redrawn at the start of each decade, based on new census data. But Trump’s quest for a midterm election advantage triggered an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle that spread to more than a dozen states led by Democrats and Republicans.

___

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

By Mike Stone, Erin Banco and David Jeans

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Sept 4 (Reuters) – The White House has reviewed candidates to potentially replace Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, three people familiar with the discussions told Reuters, a sign that more leadership change could come for a Pentagon already facing unusually high staff turnover.

The effort, which was under way in June, has included conversations with senior lawmakers in the Senate about whether the administration’s picks would have enough support to be confirmed, said two of the people, one of whom added that the review was still going on as of late August. Reuters could not determine when the White House began considering candidates.

The three sources said no decision had been made to remove Feinberg from his post. They did not say why the White House was reviewing potential replacements and did not specify which candidates the White House was considering.

“These so-called anonymous ‘sources’ have no idea what they are talking about,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly.

“President Trump appreciates the work of Secretary Hegseth, Deputy Secretary Feinberg, and the entire Department of War, whose record of success in Operation Epic Fury, Operation Absolute Resolve, and Operation Midnight Hammer speaks for itself,” she said, referring to U.S. military operations in Iran and Venezuela.

The Pentagon denied a process was under way to replace Feinberg. Asked for comment by Reuters, Hegseth said in a statement that Feinberg has his full support and “isn’t going anywhere.”

The Pentagon did not provide a comment from Feinberg and declined to make him available for an interview.

A departure by Feinberg, the billionaire co-founder of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, would be the most senior staff change for a department that has already seen a string of high-profile departures under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week following months of tension with Hegseth, according to a source familiar with the matter. The Army has declined to comment on the reasons for his departure. Navy Secretary John Phelan and several senior Army leaders have also departed in recent months.

Feinberg, who vowed to accelerate U.S. munitions production, has not yet met that goal, according to analysts who say that the U.S. industrial base cannot ramp up quickly. Some defense industry executives say his task has been complicated by the slow pace of Congress appropriating funds despite immense pressure from the administration.

Feinberg “has worked tirelessly to rebuild our Defense Industrial Base and ensure our military has everything it needs to win, and I look forward to continuing to work with him,” Hegseth said in his statement to Reuters, adding, “He’s doing a tremendous job for President Trump, for the Department, and for our warfighters.”

FRUSTRATION OVER THE IRAN WAR

Trump has increasingly expressed frustration with the lack of progress in the six-month-old Iran war, which has settled into a costly standoff between the U.S. and Iran.

One of the costs has been a drawdown of U.S. weapons stockpiles. Reuters has reported that the U.S. military faces significant shortages of certain munitions, which have alarmed Congress and military leaders.

Trump has dismissed the concerns, saying the U.S. has “far more munitions than anyone in the world.”

But in an exchange with Trump at Camp David earlier this month, according to the Washington Post, Hegseth blamed Feinberg for letting stockpiles of long-range guided missiles and air-defense interceptors shrink. 

The White House has called the report “fake news.” In a statement to Reuters, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said: “Secretary Hegseth did not mislead anyone about our munitions posture, and he did not blame Deputy Secretary Feinberg.”

Appointed by Trump last year, Feinberg has attempted to reshape the Pentagon by ramping up the U.S. military’s direct investments in companies and delivering loans to military contractors through multiple offices inside the department, including the Office of Strategic Capital and the newly created Economic Defense Unit.

In an August 18 memo he sent to defense firms and seen by Reuters, Feinberg called on contractors to speed up production and provide more transparency around pricing. The Pentagon did not respond to a question about the memo.

Feinberg has also come under scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has raised concerns about whether his former firm Cerberus could benefit from the Pentagon’s spending on its Golden Dome missile defense program.

“There are no conflicts of interest between Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg and Cerberus,” said Parnell. “He has completely divested from Cerberus and has recused himself from any conversations or business relationships between the Executive Branch and Cerberus.”

Cerberus did not respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington, Erin Banco in New York, and David Jeans in New York; Editing by Don Durfee, Joe Brock and Edmund Klamann)

A federal judge on Friday extended her prohibition against the U.S. Postal Service implementing President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to limit mail voting during the midterms, putting another major obstacle in the way of the administration as the first states begin sending out mail ballots.

The preliminary injunction from U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani replaces a temporary order she granted blocking the Postal Service’s plan.

The Trump administration had already asked the Supreme Court to lift Talwani’s temporary order, and on Friday it informed her that it would appeal her latest decision to the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

The administration is running out of time to make big changes in voting procedures, though. North Carolina began sending out its first mail ballots Friday and more states will swiftly follow.

The legal battle could have major ramifications for this year’s elections, when control of Congress is at stake. Nearly one-third of voters in the U.S. cast mail ballots and election officials contend there isn’t enough time to revise their systems to comply with the new Postal Service directives.

Talwani, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, pointed to the tight timeline in her ruling.

“Plaintiff States are required under state law to mail millions of ballots to voters on a prescribed timeframe. As detailed below, they are unable to pivot this late in the election cycle, nearly guaranteeing significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters,” she wrote.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

The order allows states to voluntarily use the new Postal Service system. To date, not a single state has announced that it will do so.

Trump has long sought to limit mail voting, even though he himself often uses that method to cast his own ballot. He has falsely blamed mail balloting for his 2020 election loss, spreading baseless claims of fraud, but has so far been unable to change the longstanding voting procedure.

An initial executive order Trump issued last year to change election rules, including a requirement for people to show documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, was halted by federal judges. They ruled that the Constitution gives states and, in some cases, Congress the power to set voting procedures, not the president.

After Trump issued his mail voting executive order in March, Democrats and voting rights groups filed several lawsuits. Two ended up before Talwani, who placed an initial hold on the order in June, prohibiting its implementation until after November.

But the Supreme Court late last month overturned that order. Its conservative majority pointedly did not say Trump’s move was legal but found the lawsuits were filed prematurely before the Postal Service issued its rule on how it would implement the order. The rule came out just before the Supreme Court released its ruling, and the plaintiffs re-filed their suits.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday said the conflict in Iran is “small potatoes” as he defended Vice President JD Vance for asserting that months of on-and-off attacks in the Middle East are not a “war.”

Asked during an Oval Office exchange about Vance’s comments made a day earlier, Trump said U.S. strikes on Iran are now “intermittent” and “a lot of people don’t call it a war.” The conflict has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $37.5 billion and left 18 U.S. service members dead.

“I can understand what he’s saying,” said Trump. He added: “I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing.”

Vance, during a White House press briefing Thursday, rejected the use of the word “war” to describe the U.S. fighting with Iran and steered clear of predicting that the 6-month-old conflict would be over by November’s midterm elections, in which Republicans are trying to hang on to their narrow majorities in Congress.

“I wouldn’t call it a war,” Vance said after being asked about whether the fighting could end before voters cast their ballots in the Nov. 3 elections. “Right now, there is no active shooting.”

Vance’s assertion came even as Iran fired at U.S. Gulf ally Kuwait on Thursday in retaliation for rounds of U.S. strikes on Iran earlier in the week.

Trump in Friday’s exchange with reporters added that the U.S. death toll in the Iran conflict is relatively lower than some other recent U.S. wars. The U.S. and Israel have only carried out air strikes in the Iran war, which began Feb. 28, and have not deployed troops into the country.

“We did Venezuela and we did this. In Venezuela, we lost nobody,” said Trump, referring to the January U.S. military operation to seize former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to New York City to face federal drug trafficking charges. “And this, we lost 18 people. And, in Vietnam we lost 100,000 people. And in other conflicts, we lost tens of thousands of people.”

A total of 58,220 members of the U.S. armed forces died during the Vietnam War, according to records from the U.S. National Archives.

Pressed by a reporter on describing the conflict as “small potatoes” when 18 U.S. service members have been killed, Trump responded by reiterating his argument that the conflict — one that he said at the outset of the war would last a matter of weeks — has led to the defanging of Iran’s nuclear program.

“Iran will not have a nuclear weapon because if they did you probably wouldn’t be standing here,” Trump said.

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday extended a ban stopping President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing a new U.S. Postal Service rule that would tighten mail-in voting requirements ahead of the November congressional elections.

Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued the injunction at the behest of Democratic-led states and voting rights groups, after one state sent out mail ballots for the elections on Friday. Talwani wrote that only laws passed by Congress can supersede states’ authority over elections, adding “the executive has no inherent authority” over voting rules.

Congress has never delegated authority over voting to the Postal Service, Talwani wrote, and the agency’s new rule “clashes with Congress’s statutory scheme, and is unconstitutional.”

The immediate deadlines demanded by the Postal Service’s rule would create “chaos” for groups that provide information about how to vote, Talwani wrote. Organizations such as the League of Women Voters “do not know whether to advise their members to vote by mail, despite legal entitlement, due to the high risk of disenfranchisement,” her ruling states.

The administration swiftly filed a notice of appeal.

The USPS declined to comment on the ruling, but U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner defended the agency’s handling of the issue.

“We have at all times acted within our legal authority to issue a rule to achieve those policies, but ultimately the courts will decide that question, and we will follow the court’s determination,” Steiner said on Friday.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

POSTAL SERVICE RULE FOLLOWS TRUMP ORDER

Under the rule, states must supply the USPS with lists of mail ballot recipients, and all outbound and return ballot envelopes must bear unique barcodes. The USPS, under the rule, may refuse to deliver ballots that do not comply with the new standards or are associated with voters who do not appear on the lists.

Last week, Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, issued a 14-day temporary restraining order to prevent USPS’ rule from being enforced while she considered whether to issue a longer-term injunction.

The administration on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and lift the temporary order so the rule could take effect. The court’s 6-3 conservative majority last week lifted a prior order Talwani issued preventing USPS from imposing such restrictions.

USPS issued its rule to implement an executive order Trump signed in March after years of the Republican president calling to restrict voting by mail and pushing the false ​claim that his 2020 presidential election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden was the result of widespread voter fraud.

All 50 states allow for some form of mail-in voting. Of those, 29 states allow voters to ask to cast ballots by mail without providing a reason, and eight conduct their elections entirely by mail. North Carolina on Friday became the first state to mail ballots for the November elections.

The rule, if allowed to take effect, could force state election officials to try to overhaul their systems with just weeks left until the elections to comply with a system that critics say USPS is not ready to implement.

Talwani said it was “implausible” that states would be able to comply with the rule for this year’s looming elections, as it would require 10,000 election jurisdictions to redesign their ballots, print them and submit voter information to a USPS-run online portal that does not yet exist.

“Having considered this series of hurdles for officials against the backdrop of an impending election, and mindful of the fact that any minor malfunction will result in the denial of mail ballots, the court concludes that disenfranchisement for Plaintiff Organizations’ members, regardless of residence, is practically inevitable,” she wrote, referring to the voting rights groups.

The administration had asked a federal appeals court to set aside Talwani’s initial restraining order. But the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had not acted on that request before the judge issued her latest decision.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Rod Nickel and Tom Hogue)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal from Republicans in a dispute over campaign ad prices on Friday, clearing a legal roadblock to political parties getting cheaper TV ad time ahead of the midterm elections.

The justices halted for now a lower-court ruling in favor of Democratic candidates who argued that cheaper broadcast ads should be limited to candidates. One justice publicly dissented from the unsigned order. It’s the latest election-related appeal to come before the high court ahead of the pivotal November contests.

The Trump administration supported the emergency appeal from GOP campaign arms.

The decision comes on the heels of a June Supreme Court ruling that removed limits on parties spending money in coordination with candidates. It was seen as a boon to the GOP because the national party has a sizable cash advantage, and access to cheaper ad rates could boost that edge.

Among Democrats, meanwhile, some individual candidates have sizable fundraising advantages over their Republican opponents.

Candidates pay discounted rates for TV time around an election under federal law, and in March the Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau said certain party-coordinated ads are entitled to those prices as well.

Four Democrats, including Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and former Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, challenged the finding in court. They won a victory from a divided panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of appeals.

The National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee then asked the Supreme Court to intervene. They argued that broadcasters were already charging them higher rates and upending their planned budgets after the appeals court decision.

The majority of justices agreed that the lower court had acted too soon with the order that differed from judges around the country.

“Current and future recissions will require the party committees to pay more for advertising space, thereby hampering their efforts to reach the electorate in the critical weeks leading up to the midterms,” the Supreme Court order states.

One justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, disagreed, writing that the court likely didn’t have to wait until an internal FCC review was done.

The decision halts the appeals court ruling while the Republican committees file a fuller appeal.

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to give 48 hours’ notice before engaging in any activity on the site of a triumphal arch it wants to build near Arlington National Cemetery, except for work to identify underground cultural artifacts.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan came a day after the U.S. Interior Department announced plans to move forward soon with work on the 250-foot (76-meter) arch near despite legal challenges and the lack of final approval from a government planning authority.

In a U.S. District Court filing on Friday seeking a temporary restraining order, lawyers for a group of three military veterans and an architectural historian said the administration has “no legal basis for the construction work.” They said the arch violates federal law and needs approval from Congress.

The administration has argued a 1925 law that authorized a now-defunct commission to build Washington’s Arlington Memorial Bridge provides congressional approval for the arch, which the opponents dispute.

Despite Thursday’s announcement on X by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum of work starting after “a very long wait,” the government said in a court filing Friday the planned excavation work at the arch site was “not construction, or demolition in preparation for construction, of an arch.”

The government said in its court filing that it plans to dig four “test pits” to assess if any artifacts or cultural materials are present, starting on or after September 21. It said it would restore the site by October 31.

Chutkan in April sharply questioned Trump’s authority to build the arch, and the government agreed in April to provide 14 days’ notice before starting construction as part of a consent order entered by the judge.

The Interior Department reiterated that notice plan on Friday.

In her latest ruling, Chutkan ordered the administration to provide the court at least 48 hours’ notice before “engaging in any activity” at the site, except efforts to gather information on archaeological resources beneath subsurface fill materials as required under the National Historic Preservation Act.

She also reiterated that any construction or demolition in preparation for construction before the National Park Service issues a final authorization, or without providing 14 days’ notice, would violate Friday’s order and her previous consent order.

The arch is part of Trump’s broader effort to leave his architectural mark on America’s capital city, with projects including a new White House ballroom, renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and redevelopment of a golf course in East Potomac Park.

With a design evoking Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, the new monument would rise near Arlington cemetery, a sprawling military burial ground, which supporters say would honor the sacrifice of American veterans. 

Opponents say the arch would destroy the cemetery’s carefully designed historic sight line between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House across the Potomac River.

The project also has yet to receive final approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, which is considering whether to grant an exception to the 130-foot (40-meter) building height limit that applies to most of Washington.

In their Friday court filing, opponents of the project pointed to Trump’s construction of a ballroom on the White House grounds as a “cautionary tale,” saying the government proceeded with construction even though a District Court found it unlawful and a Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week in a 5-4 ruling let ballroom construction continue while Trump challenges a judicial ​order that would halt much of the development, with Chief Justice John Roberts in a dissent calling the project “likely unlawful.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman, Editing by Franklin Paul, Cynthia Osterman and Shri Navaratnam)

By John Kruzel, Andrew Chung and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court revived on Friday a federal policy ​giving party committees access to discounted TV and radio advertising rates long available to political ‌candidates, as major Republican committees head toward the November ​midterm elections with a cash advantage over their Democratic counterparts.

The justices granted a request by two Republican committees to block a lower court’s ruling that had effectively prevented them from benefiting ​from the Federal Communications Commission’s “lowest unit charge” rule while they appeal that decision to the Supreme Court.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee made the request. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court’s three Democratic appointees, was the only justice to publicly dissent from the decision.

President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans are hoping to retain control of ​the House of Representatives and Senate in the November 3 midterm elections.

The FCC policy requires broadcasters to charge discounted rates for ​airing certain political advertisements within 60 days of a general election, a window that was set to open this ⁠year on September 4. The agency in March published guidance saying that party committees are eligible for the cheaper rates ​when buying ads coordinated with candidates.

The FCC, chaired by Trump ally Brendan Carr, has backed the Republican committees in their push for cheaper ad rates, and Carr praised the ruling.

Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, though, said the “decision throws the midterm election into chaos. It allows the FCC to unleash a flood of dark money by letting a handful of wealthy donors pool unlimited contributions into political advertising.”

And it will force local broadcasters to absorb the costs, Gomez said.

The FCC policy gained greater significance after the Supreme Court in June struck down federal restrictions ​on spending coordinated between parties and their candidates, siding with Republican challengers.

The three major Republican committees — the Republican National Committee, the ​National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee — ended July with about $279 million in cash. That was more than double ‌the ⁠roughly $136 million held by their Democratic counterparts, which also carried nearly $18 million in debt, according to Federal Election Commission filings in August.

Political analysts said Republican committees have sought to seize on their party’s significant war chest and the new legal landscape to help level the playing field in important races where Democratic candidates have outraised their Republican opponents.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee said in a June memo that “lowest unit charge” rates for coordinated ads historically have been three to 13 times cheaper than the rates paid by outside political groups.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee works to get Republican candidates elected to the Senate. The National Republican Congressional Committee works to get Republican candidates elected to the House.

A group of Democratic candidates including Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia sued in June to try to block the lowest unit charge policy from applying to party committees.

The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on August 25 sided ​with the Democratic challengers, ruling ​that political parties are not ⁠entitled to the low-cost ad rate. That ruling prompted the Republican committees to ask the Supreme Court to halt the 4th Circuit’s ruling before the FCC ad-rate 60-day window was set to open.

In court papers, the Republican committees said they have already budgeted “tens of millions ​of dollars in ⁠ad buys under these rules.” They added, “But because of the 4th Circuit’s decision, broadcast stations are already rescinding those rates.”

In response, the Democratic candidates told the justices that reviving the FCC policy would expose them to “an onslaught of more negative advertising than they would otherwise face, along with a higher level of competition for a limited amount of available television advertising time and an accompanying need to adjust their own campaign strategy accordingly.”

Ossoff was joined in the legal challenge by U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown of Ohio, U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Michigan Representative Kristen McDonald Rivet, who is seeking reelection.

The Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling in June powered by its conservative majority decided that a cap on the amount of ⁠money parties ​can spend on campaigns with input from candidates violates the U.S. Constitution’s ​First Amendment protections against government abridgment of freedom of speech.

It was the latest decision eliminating campaign funding limits in recent decades and marked one of ​several rulings the court issued during its recently concluded term that favored Republicans.

(Reporting by John Kruzel, David Shepardson and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Tom Hogue)

By Gram Slattery and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters he planned to allocate $400 million to $500 million from his MAGA Inc super PAC for Republicans in the November midterm elections, trying to calm party worries that he will not spend the money.

 “I’m going to spend whatever amount of money necessary to try to help us,” Trump said at an event in the Oval Office. “This is money from MAGA Inc. This is money that I control.”

Trump said the fund has about $1 billion. Some Republicans have expressed concern that he would not spend the money to help his party retain control of Congress, as they have not seen much evidence that it is being spent.

 It is unclear how much Trump has spent thus far.

 With only two months until the November 3 Election Day, spending up to $500 million in a last-minute deluge of targeted advertising might not have the effect that Republicans want, as some voters may have already made up their minds and available television ad space may be limited.

 One race in particular that Republicans are worried about is Republican Ken Paxton’s attempt to win a hotly contested Senate race over Democrat James Talarico in Texas. Trump endorsed Paxton over incumbent Republican John Cornyn over the wishes of Senate Republican leaders.

Trump said he might spend some of his money in the 2028 election year, when voters decide who will succeed him as the next president.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery and Steve Holland;Editing by Andy Sullivan, David Ljunggren, Michelle Nichols and David Gaffen)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Lawmakers urged the U.S. Postal Service on Friday to halt work on new mail-in voting rules, saying they threaten the integrity of the November congressional elections.

“The Postal Service’s continued illegal attempts to turn itself into an election administration agency at the direction of President Trump risks disenfranchising eligible American voters and threatens the integrity of upcoming elections,” wrote Senator Gary Peters of Michigan and the other six Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that oversees the USPS in a letter seen by Reuters.

Late Thursday, President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court to let it enforce the new USPS rule tightening the use of mail-in ballots.

USPS did not immediately comment.

The Democratic senators — Peters and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Ruben Gallego of Arizona — said the effort “will undermine peoples’ faith in the upcoming elections” and cited a whistleblower who warned that USPS’ planned “verification” systems “risk collapsing the absentee ballot system and disenfranchising millions of Americans.”

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has issued an order temporarily preventing the USPS from enforcing the new rule, which it adopted following an executive order by the Republican president to restrict mail-in ballots. 

The USPS regulation would impose new voter-specific data and ballot envelope standards, and potentially refuse the delivery of ballots that do not comply, which critics say could disrupt thousands of legitimate votes as the November 3 vote approaches.

Republicans are locked in a tight battle to retain control of Congress in the elections. Critics say restricting mail-in ballots would disproportionately benefit Republicans given that Democratic voters traditionally have been more likely to use mail-in ballots.

Under the new USPS rule, states must provide lists of mail ballot recipients to the postal service and use agency-approved outbound and return ballot mail envelopes outfitted with unique barcodes. The postal service could then refuse to send out ballots that do not comply with the new standards or are associated with voters who do not appear on the lists.

Trump, who signed his executive order targeting mail-in ballots in March, has for years cast doubt on their security, although evidence of voter fraud is rare. Trump has made false claims of widespread fraud in U.S. elections, including about his 2020 loss to former Democratic President Joe Biden.

(Reporting by David ShepardsonEditing by Nick Zieminski and Rod Nickel)