The Justice Department went straight to the Supreme Court. Will the justices clear the way for the new USPS mail-ballot rules by Sept 12?
59% of users predicted NO — the community got this one right. 17 predictions cast.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court directly to stay a lower-court injunction blocking new U.S. Postal Service mail-ballot rules, rather than waiting for the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals to rule first. The emergency application, filed under the docket USPS v. California, sought to let the rules, which impose new envelope-design and voter-list requirements, take effect immediately. Circuit Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency matters from the 1st Circuit, set a September 9 deadline for the states and voting-rights groups challenging the rule to respond.
As of the question's September 12 resolution date, the Supreme Court had not issued a ruling on the application; it remained pending on the court's emergency docket, consistent with the timeline the response deadline implied.
The prediction-market community had put 41% odds on the justices clearing the way for the rules by September 12, and the majority view proved correct. The Supreme Court's inaction left the mail-ballot rules blocked by the lower-court injunction, mirroring the outcome of the parallel appeal pending before the 1st Circuit.