Judge pauses US Postal Service plan to implement Trump’s new mail voting restrictions
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(CNN) — A federal judge in Boston has temporarily blocked the US Postal Service from carrying out a plan, issued under an executive order from President Trump, that could limit mail voting.
Democratic states and voter advocacy groups challenging the recently released USPS rules were granted a temporary restraining order for two weeks late Thursday night.
“Through the Final Rule, the USPS is refusing to send mail ballots to eligible voters unless States or local election officials submit their mail ballot envelopes and return envelopes and receive advance approval from the USPS without regard to impending deadlines for the November 3, 2026 election,” Judge Indira Talwani wrote in her ruling.
The challengers, she added, are likely to win on their claims that the rule is unconstitutional and that the USPS lacks authority to issue it in the first place.
“Plaintiff States have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal, and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms,” wrote Talwani, a nominee of President Barack Obama.
The White House condemned the ruling and said it will appeal.
“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed this same activist judge’s ruling attempting to stop President Trump from implementing commonsense measures to protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans vote in American elections. We will immediately appeal this unreasoned and unlawful order,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.
Under the agency’s plan, states would be required to submit lists of their mail voters to the US Postal Service in order to use the service to transmit their ballots. USPS would also only carry ballots that are in envelopes that have specific bar codes unique to each voter to facilitate automated tracking. The administration says the requirements are aimed at facilitating law enforcement investigations.
In court filings, state election officials said the mandate would require them to redesign and reprint millions of ballot envelopes, and that their vendors had indicated that such a job could not be done in time for the midterms. The election officials also raised concerns about the feasibility of the proposed system for uploading the mail voter lists.
Talwani wrote in Thursday’s ruling that the Trump administration offered “no reply to Plaintiff States’ assertion that compliance for the 2026 midterm elections will be impossible for many of them.”
The Justice Department had argued in court filings that the regulatory change was “modest” and USPS had the statuary authority to undertake it.
Next Thursday, Talwani will hold a hearing on whether to issue preliminary injunction on the regulations — which would be a longer-lasting block on the plan.
The Thursday ruling is the latest legal volley in what is expected to be a fast-moving court battle over Trump’s proposed plan, after the Supreme Court on Monday removed a previous court order issued by Talwani that had blocked agencies from carrying out aspects of the March executive order in the two-dozen states that are suing over it.
The Supreme Court said in that ruling — over the dissent of the court’s three liberals — that Talwani’s previous order was premature because at the time that the states filed their lawsuit against Trump’s directives, the agencies had not yet had a chance to roll out their final plan for implementing it.
The high court’s ruling did not acknowledge the final rule that USPS released Friday night, as those were not part of the record of the appeal before the justices. This latest ruling stems from revised complaints that opponents filed in response to the final rule.
This story has been updated with additional details.
