A federal judge on Tuesday again blocked the Trump administration from putting its mail voting order into effect, keeping the U.S. Postal Service from taking any steps to help carry out the plan for this year’s midterm elections. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani said the administration cannot use the executive branch to change election rules less than 90 days before November 3, 2026.
The ruling matters now because the order had been written to do more than speak about elections. It sought a federal voter list and a role for the Postal Service in election operations, steps that would have pushed the federal government into a space the judge said it does not control. Talwani’s earlier decisions had already stopped the core of the order, but Tuesday’s ruling added another barrier if the administration tries to revive the plan after seeking Supreme Court relief.
For Sean Reid, who cast his ballot at the polling station in Rockingham during Vermont’s state and federal primary elections on Tuesday, the fight over mail voting is not abstract. It is about whether the rules people rely on stay fixed long enough for them to vote with confidence. The case now reaches into the 2026 midterms, when even a narrow change in federal election policy could affect how ballots move through the system.
Talwani first halted the order after Donald Trump signed it in March 2026, and on June 25 she sided with Democratic state attorneys general in granting summary judgment that kept the core provisions from taking effect. On Tuesday, she went further and granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters and other voting rights groups, barring the Postal Service from taking any steps to implement the order for this year’s midterm elections. In late July, the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause lower court rulings that have blocked the changes in nearly half the country.
The White House says Trump wants Congress to pass a stalled bill to restructure American elections, not simply act on his own. But Talwani said the executive branch has no authority to regulate elections, and she noted that the administration has so far declined to defend the constitutionality of the order. The League of Women Voters called the ruling a victory for voters and for the Constitution, while the White House said the entire Trump Administration will continue lawfully carrying out the agenda President Trump was elected to enact.
The practical effect is blunt: the Postal Service cannot move ahead unless the order clears the legal block now in place, and the administration must first convince the Supreme Court to lift the initial injunction. Even then, Talwani’s Tuesday ruling leaves a separate injunction standing, so the fight over the order is not just about one ruling but about whether the federal government has any lawful path left to reshape election rules before November.
