U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani on Thursday put a new U.S. Postal Service rule on hold for 14 days, blocking enforcement of a measure tied to Donald Trump's executive order limiting mail-in voting. The ruling lands with about a week left before the first mail ballots were expected to go out for the midterm elections.
The Postal Service had said it would not accept outbound mail ballots unless states submitted required recipient information through its portal and met envelope and barcode requirements. Talwani said plaintiff states did not have the time or money to redesign mail ballots, seek approval for new versions, order production, update election systems, train officials on the USPS portal and upload citizen data before the midterms.
The dispute has moved fast because nearly one-third of Americans vote by mail, and the changes at issue would have to be absorbed almost immediately by election officials already working toward the midterms. Democrats and voting rights groups have argued that both the Postal Service rule and Trump's order are unconstitutional, and they refiled lawsuits after the Supreme Court issued a procedural decision that let the administration move ahead without deciding whether the order itself is lawful.
That earlier ruling also found Talwani had acted too soon, but the judge's new order on Thursday put the brakes on enforcement again. The result is a direct collision between a Supreme Court ruling that cleared the path procedurally and a district court order that stopped the practical effect of the rule.
A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 3, and that is now the date that matters. By then, the court will have to decide whether the temporary restraining order becomes longer, narrower or disappears entirely, but for now the Postal Service rule remains blocked while the countdown to the midterms keeps running. Related coverage on the fight over Trump's mail ballot order can be found here:
