{"id":28864,"date":"2020-06-25T09:39:20","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T14:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=28864"},"modified":"2020-06-25T09:39:20","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T14:39:20","slug":"federal-judge-rules-postage-is-not-a-poll-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2020\/06\/25\/federal-judge-rules-postage-is-not-a-poll-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Rules &#8211; postage is not a \u2018poll tax\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>A federal judge rejected the plaintiffs\u2019 argument that requiring voters to pick up the tab for stamps amounts to an unconstitutional \u201cpoll tax.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">TALLAHASSEE \u2014 With a closely watched trial set to begin next month, a federal judge on Wednesday struck a blow to left-leaning groups seeking to expand Florida\u2019s vote-by-mail procedures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle denied most portions of the groups\u2019 requests for preliminary injunctions in the case, which is a consolidation of three lawsuits, saying the plaintiffs lack \u201ca substantial likelihood of succeeding\u201d on the vast majority of the issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In one of the lawsuits, the group Priorities USA and other plaintiffs want the judge to extend a deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned and require free postage for the ballots. They\u2019re also challenging a provision in Florida law restricting paid workers from collecting mail-in ballots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cPostage charged by the United States Postal Service &#8212; like the fee charged by any other courier or the bus fare for getting to the polls to vote in person &#8212; is not a tax prohibited by the Twenty-Fourth Amendment. And the requirement to pay postage also does not violate any other federal provision,\u201d Hinkle wrote in Wednesday\u2019s five-page order, referring to the U.S constitutional amendment that bars poll taxes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The judge also swatted down plaintiffs\u2019 attempt at extending the deadline for supervisors of elections to receive mail-in ballots. Under current law, the ballots must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day. The plaintiffs want ballots postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day to be valid, as some states allow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">But Hinkle noted that the deadline is discretionary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">States can \u201creasonably decide\u201d to require ballots to be received on or before the day of the election, he wrote. Read full article at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/florida-politics\/buzz\/2020\/06\/25\/postage-not-a-poll-tax-florida-judge-rules\/\">Tampa Bay Times<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-28865\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Postage-Not-A-Poll-Tax.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"478\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Postage-Not-A-Poll-Tax.jpg 478w, https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Postage-Not-A-Poll-Tax-300x176.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 478px) 100vw, 478px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge rejected the plaintiffs\u2019 argument that requiring voters to pick up the tab for stamps amounts to an unconstitutional \u201cpoll tax.\u201d TALLAHASSEE \u2014 With a closely watched trial set to begin next month, a federal judge on Wednesday struck a blow to left-leaning groups seeking to expand Florida\u2019s vote-by-mail procedures. U.S. District Judge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28866,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28864\/revisions\/28866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}