A federal judge in Boston will hear arguments Thursday on whether to keep a block on a U.S. Postal Service requirement that states use a new mail balloting system for the midterms. Judge Indira Talwani is deciding whether the temporary order she issued last week should become a preliminary injunction, just as the first state is set to start sending mail ballots to voters.
The timing makes the hearing far more than routine courtroom business. Talwani imposed a 14-day temporary restraining order after previously stopping the administration in June from trying to put President Donald Trump’s order into effect for the November election. That earlier ruling, though, was swept aside late last month when the Supreme Court said it came too soon because the Postal Service had not yet published regulations governing how it would carry out the order.
Those regulations were published just before the Supreme Court ruling landed, and Democrats and voting rights groups quickly returned to court. Their argument is straightforward: the president does not have authority to set election rules, and the Postal Service cannot force states into a new ballot mailing system while those rules are still being fought over in court.
That sequence created the opening Talwani now has to close or widen. Her June order was overtaken by the publication of the regulations, which is why the lawsuits were re-filed and why Thursday’s hearing matters now rather than later. If she extends the block, the Postal Service requirement stays on hold while more states begin sending out mail ballots next week. If she does not, the temporary restraining order expires and the agency can move ahead under the new rules while the case continues.
The immediate question is no longer whether the dispute exists. It is whether Talwani keeps the pause in place long enough to stop the rule from reaching the mail stream before the midterms ballot season is underway. For states preparing to send ballots now, that answer arrives before the mailing starts, not after it.
