The U.S. Postal Service has halted work on a computer system central to President Donald Trump’s effort to limit mail-in voting.
Postmaster General David Steiner confirmed the stoppage Thursday in an interview with the Associated Press, just days after the Supreme Court rejected the president’s executive order for this year’s midterms.
“There’s an injunction so we’re not doing anything,” Steiner told the AP.
Trump’s drive to eliminate mail-in voting handed the Postal Service an unexpected role as a gatekeeper of voter eligibility just months ahead of the midterm elections, a job Steiner has been reluctant to take on, according to the AP.
Unlike Trump, who blasted the court’s decision and mocked several justices, Steiner declined to weigh in on the ruling or the underlying policy, the AP reported. He described his agency as an “independent agency of the executive branch” whose reach over the order was confined to logistics.
“I don’t get to decide what rules that are put on us that I decide to accept or not accept,” Steiner said. “I looked at it more from the execution side.”
The order Trump signed in March instructed federal agencies to compile state citizenship lists that would feed an online Postal Service portal, which would then send mail ballots only to voters cleared through the process, the AP reported. Steiner said he learned of the order about a month before its rollout but focused on carrying it out rather than judging its merits.
A whistleblower report released this month by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) contended the system was rushed and riddled with errors. Steiner said he read portions of it and acknowledged the difficulty of building such a platform on a tight timeline, though he defended his staff.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that we worked fast,” he said. “My personal opinion is it was a monumental task and I’m very proud of our IT department for being able to do it that fast.”
Reuters reported on Wednesday that Steiner told associates he wants to quit because he’s deeply discouraged by his job as it comes under scrutiny. Steiner denied the resignation talk in his AP interview.
“There’s no truth to that,” he said. “I think I know the motivation behind it. I think it’s somebody that would like to see me out of a job.”
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