A federal judge in Massachusetts has barred the U.S. Postal Service from rolling out new mail-in ballot handling rules ahead of the November 2026 midterms, dealing a second major legal setback to an executive order President Trump signed in March aimed at overhauling how mail ballots are processed nationwide. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled the rule was unconstitutional and unsupported by federal law, prompting the Trump administration to file another emergency appeal with the Supreme Court just days later.
What the Executive Order Sought to Change
The March executive order directed federal agencies, including USPS and the Department of Homeland Security, to impose new requirements on how states handle mail-in ballots, including envelope specifications and portal-based registration verification provisions that critics say would have added friction to an already tight mail-voting timeline. Voting rights groups and several state election officials sued almost immediately, arguing the federal government lacks authority to dictate ballot-handling procedures that have traditionally been left to the states under the Constitution’s Elections Clause.
Judge Talwani’s Reasoning
In her September ruling, Talwani granted a preliminary injunction concluding that implementing the Postal Service’s Final Rule less than seventy days before the election threatened to disenfranchise millions of Americans who plan to vote by mail. She found the rule likely exceeded USPS’s statutory authority and was adopted without the kind of considered rulemaking process federal law typically requires for changes of this magnitude, echoing an earlier ruling in which she had already blocked key pillars of the same executive order in June.
A Pattern of Repeated Legal Defeats
This marks at least the second time Talwani has ruled against the administration’s mail-voting overhaul this year, and voting rights organizations, including the ACLU, have separately moved to block related mail ballot rules they say were finalized without adequate public input. Democracy Docket and allied groups have characterized the string of rulings as a decisive win for voters, noting that ballots for the midterms are already being printed and mailed in several states, making last-minute rule changes especially disruptive.
The Administration’s Counterargument
The Trump administration argues the executive order and resulting USPS rule are necessary to standardize mail ballot security nationwide and prevent fraud, and that federal courts are wrongly second-guessing an agency’s operational authority over its own mail-handling procedures. In its latest emergency filing, first reported by SCOTUSblog and confirmed by ABC News, the administration asked the Supreme Court to stay Talwani’s injunction and allow the new rules to take effect immediately for the fall election, arguing lower courts have no basis to block a facially neutral administrative rule.
States and Advocacy Groups Push Back
A coalition of state election officials, including from California, intervened in the litigation to argue that the federal rule would upend ballot procedures they have already finalized and communicated to voters, and that abrupt federal intervention this close to an election violates long-standing principles against changing election rules in the final stretch of a campaign, sometimes referred to as the Purcell principle. They argue any Supreme Court intervention now would itself risk voter confusion just weeks before ballots are due.
What’s Next
The Supreme Court has not yet acted on the administration’s latest emergency application, and with ballots already going out in numerous states, the justices face a compressed timeline to decide whether to let Talwani’s injunction stand or grant the administration’s request. Election law experts say the outcome could determine whether uniform new mail ballot handling rules apply to this November’s midterms or whether states retain their current, varied procedures, with either outcome likely to fuel further litigation over federal versus state authority in future election cycles.
