A federal judge on Friday once again blocked the Trump administration from implementing new U.S. Postal Service requirements for mail-in ballots, opening another round in a rapidly escalating court battle just as the first ballots for the November midterm elections begin going out.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction barring the USPS from enforcing mandatory portions of its recently finalized “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections” rule for elections held on or before November 3.
The ruling comes less than two weeks after the Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a victory in an earlier phase of the same dispute, staying a separate Talwani injunction that had prevented the administration from moving forward with President Donald Trump’s March election executive order.
Here’s the difference: The USPS has now issued its final rule. That change in circumstances is at the root of Talwani’s latest decision.
The Supreme Court ruled on August 24 that the earlier challenge by a coalition of states suffered from standing and ripeness problems because the Postal Service had not yet finalized its regulations when the case was brought.
The justices said the lower court had been forced to speculate about whether a final rule would be issued, what it would contain and whether it would actually injure the states.
The Supreme Court also cautioned that its decision did not establish that whatever final action the government ultimately took would necessarily be lawful. Talwani cited that language in Friday’s ruling and concluded that the legal landscape changed once the USPS formally issued the regulation.
The Postal Service issued the final rule on August 21 and published it in the Federal Register on August 26. It establishes mandatory envelope-design requirements, requires state and local election officials to submit ballot-envelope designs for USPS review and creates a federal portal through which officials must provide information associated with ballots being mailed to voters.
The administration says the rule concerns the Postal Service’s handling of mail rather than regulation of elections themselves. In its filing at the Supreme Court this week, the government argued that the requirements largely convert longstanding USPS recommendations into mandatory standards and leave decisions about voter eligibility entirely with state officials.
Talwani rejected that argument at the preliminary-injunction stage, concluding that the plaintiffs were likely to establish that USPS exceeded the authority granted to it by Congress.
She also pointed to the timing of the rule, which was finalized less than 70 days before the November election.
The “court finds, on one side, that immediate implementation of the Final Rule issued less than seventy days before the November 2026 election threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail,” Talwani wrote, while finding that the record before her contained no evidence of fraudulent mail voting sufficient to justify what she described as the rule’s “rushed implementation.”
States defending the rule disputed her assessment. Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins told the court that an injunction would prevent his state from receiving what he described as increased mail-voting security under the new requirements.
The ruling comes at a bad time. North Carolina was set to begin sending ballots as early as September 4, with Alabama also preparing to send ballots before the earlier temporary restraining order would have expired. Once those ballots enter the mail, the government argued, ordinary appellate review could come too late.
Friday’s injunction prevents USPS from making its federal ballot-envelope review requirements mandatory, requiring use of the agency’s Federal Ballot Mail Portal, or requiring voter enrollment information through that system for the 2026 midterms.
Talwani also prohibited USPS from taking additional preparatory steps toward mandatory implementation of the blocked provisions.
That leaves the mandatory portions of the USPS rule blocked for the November 3 election unless an appellate court — or the Supreme Court — intervenes again.