By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-16 21:20:19 | Updated at 2026-09-16 21:53:52
42 minutes ago
President Donald Trump’s plan to tighten regulations on mail-in ballots remains blocked in the courts weeks before the midterms, after the Supreme Court on Sept. 14 declined to let a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) rule implementing the plan take effect.
This situation has prompted debate over how mail voting will unfold during the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
A federal judge in Boston, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, a federal judge in the nation’s capital, and now the Supreme Court have all left in place orders stopping the USPS from enforcing a postal rule from late August that would change how states mail ballots and to whom.
Democrats and legal experts have offered varying assessments as to whether Trump’s order will create chaos or help prevent fraud in the upcoming elections.
Here’s what to know.
Trump’s Order
Before the USPS published a final rule implementing provisions of Trump’s Executive Order 14399 that would assign federal agencies a larger role in who receives a mail ballot and how those ballots are processed by the postal service, the fight was over the executive order.
Section 2 directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), working with other federal agencies, to put together state-by-state lists of voting-age U.S. citizens and share them with the states. The order also instructs the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prioritize investigations and prosecutions of election officials who issue federal ballots to people the federal government determines ineligible.
Section 3 directs the USPS to establish standards for mail-in and absentee ballots in federal elections.
The agency’s final rule, published Aug. 26, requires unique barcodes on both the outgoing envelope that carries a blank ballot and the return envelope that carries the completed ballot. It also requires states to upload lists of intended mail-ballot recipients to a federal portal. The rule states that USPS would not mail ballots that lack approved envelope designs or that are addressed to voters whose names do not appear on the uploaded lists.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the postal rule would “create confusion, unnecessary costs, and unacceptable risks for voters going into Election Day.”
James, other Democratic attorneys general, and a group of nonprofits obtained initial blocks on those sections.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston issued a block, stating that the postal rule usurped Congress’s constitutional role in regulating elections and that no law gives the USPS the authority to decide who receives a federal ballot or in what envelope. Talwani also held that the rule was unworkable this close to the November elections, noting that some states were on the verge of mailing within days and that forcing compliance might disenfranchise those who vote by mail. She said the government did not produce evidence of the allegedly significant mail ballot fraud that the rule was designed to prevent.
On Aug. 24, the Supreme Court issued a procedural decision allowing the administration to move forward with planning, but the justices did not decide whether the executive order itself is lawful. That question returned to the lower courts after the USPS issued its final rule, producing a second round of litigation.
The unsigned 6–3 order did not uphold or strike down the executive order. The majority said the states’ challenge was premature: the order itself was an internal directive to executive branch agencies, the states had not yet experienced a concrete injury, and they therefore were not entitled to relief. The justices left the door open to new lawsuits once agencies issued binding rules—and after the USPS issued its final rule, those lawsuits did follow.
Talwani adopted the view of a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states, later joined by voting rights groups, who argued that the president and the USPS do not have the authority to rewrite how states run elections. She said the Constitution’s Elections Clause assigns that power to the states and Congress, not to an executive agency acting without clear statutory authority.
The Trump administration disagrees. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the postal rule contains only “modest design and informational requirements” for envelopes and voter data, is not a takeover of state elections, and that the USPS has express statutory authority under its organizing statute, Title 39, which allows it to prescribe conditions for mail it carries.
The Continuing Fight
The legal dispute is now over the postal rule, which amends the agency’s Domestic Mail Manual for outbound and return mail in federal elections.
The rule requires that ballot envelopes carry the Election Mail logo, be automation-compatible, and show a unique Intelligent Mail barcode. States must get USPS approval of envelope designs and upload lists of intended mail ballot recipients to a new federal portal. The post office will not transmit ballots lacking approved envelopes or addressed to voters not on those lists.
Talwani treated the rule as an election regulation, as opposed to routine mail processing. In her Aug. 27 temporary restraining order, later converted to a Sept. 4 preliminary injunction, she held that USPS likely lacked congressional authority to decide who may receive a federal ballot or in what envelope. She said compliance was “practically impossible” this close to Nov. 3 because many states had “already ordered their mail ballots,” and some had to start mailing “as early as next week.” Immediate implementation may disenfranchise voters, she said.
On Aug. 31, she declined to pause the freeze, calling the rule “substantively unconstitutional and contrary to law,” and rejected the Justice Department’s reading of the Supreme Court’s Aug. 24 ruling as a “cynical interpretation.”
After Talwani changed the freeze into a preliminary injunction on Sept. 4, the government sought relief from the First Circuit and the Supreme Court. On Sept. 10, a First Circuit panel refused, agreeing that the rule “explicitly and exclusively regulates election mail” and the Elections Clause assigns that power to the states and Congress, not an agency without a clear statute. On Sept. 13, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington issued a second preliminary injunction—nationwide in effect—that blocked the rule in full.
On Sept. 14, the Supreme Court denied the government’s request to stay Talwani’s injunction. In an unsigned order, the justices said the government is “unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction” and that the equitable factors for emergency relief did not favor a stay. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred, writing that state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to implement the rule before the election. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The rule is not in effect. States are mailing ballots under current policies.
How It Affects November Elections
Election officials had faced two overlapping problems: a federal rule that, if it became effective, would alter envelope design and list-sharing on a shorter calendar, and district court orders that froze the rule. With the Supreme Court leaving those orders in place, the rule will not apply to the Nov. 3 midterms.
James and other Democratic attorneys general say administrators would have had to rush redesigns, seek federal approval, and prepare new transmission systems while ballots were already in production.
Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom and a former member of the Federal Election Commission, called claims of chaos “scaremongering.” He told The Epoch Times that the barcode requirement is ordinary parcel tracking and would show how often ballot envelopes are delayed or misdelivered.
States that describe mail voting as seamless, he said, “don’t want that data because it would show the myth they’ve been propagating, that mail-in balloting is perfect.”
Before the Supreme Court’s Sept. 14 ruling, David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told The Epoch Times that the Purcell principle—the doctrine that courts should avoid last-minute changes to election rules—favors injunctions that preserve existing procedures, and he expected the Supreme Court to “let those injunctions stand, at least in large part.”
Von Spakovsky and Super agreed that the Supreme Court’s Aug. 24 ruling did not decide whether Trump’s executive order is lawful.
The Sept. 14 order likewise did not resolve the ultimate legality of the executive order or the postal rule. It left the injunctions in place for this election. Lower courts continue to weigh the merits.
