Supreme Court Blocks New Mail-Ballot Rules Before the Midterms
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to allow the U.S. Postal Service to enforce new restrictions on mail-in ballots ahead of the November midterm elections.
The denial leaves in place an order by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani that had blocked the measure. The Court addressed the request in Postal Service v. California, No. 26A305, with an order dated September 14, 2026. The application for stay, a request to pause the lower court block, was presented to Justice Jackson and by her referred to the full Court. The application was denied.
Judge Talwani had concluded the rule likely violated the U.S. Constitution and would be impossible to apply given the nearing midterms Al Jazeera. Her injunction, a court order stopping the rule, was one of two lower-court orders blocking the rule before the Supreme Court acted Reuters. A second federal judge separately blocked the administration from implementing the Postal Service rule tightening mail-in voting.
The Postal Service adopted the rule after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March seeking to tighten rules around mail-in voting. Under the measure, states were required to send the Postal Service a list of recipients and use ballot mail envelopes previously approved by the agency. State and local election officials were to upload the list to USPS through an online portal. The Postal Service was allowed to deny ballots if they failed to comply with the new standards or were not associated with registered voters on the lists. The stay application in No. 26A305 states that the Rule leaves states responsible for determining voter eligibility and eligibility to vote by mail.
The administration filed an emergency request asking the Court to allow an "important federal policy to protect the mails from being used to commit voter fraud". In late August, the Court had temporarily allowed Trump to move ahead with his executive order on mail voting on procedural grounds without ruling on the legality of the plan. That earlier matter was captioned Trump v. California, No. 26A124, dated August 24, 2026.
In the September decision, the Court said in an unsigned order, an order with no named author, that the administration was "unlikely to succeed on the merits" of its challenge Al Jazeera. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, meaning they disagreed. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump, voted with the majority against the administration while indicating he could support the policy at a later stage.
The decision allows states to send mail ballots under the process followed for years The Guardian. Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin had already begun sending ballots ahead of the midterms. In the August case, Justice Jackson had dissented, noting that states had already purchased mail-ballot envelopes for the 2026 elections. A filing in docket No. 26A297 had argued that "once ballot envelopes enter the mailstream there is no retrieving them and ordinary appellate review would come too late." Trump voted by mail himself, including during the 2024 election.
The broader context here is timing and who controls election administration. The emergency action in August kept the executive-order case alive on procedural grounds. The September order, though unsigned and issued through the emergency docket, assessed likely success and found the government unlikely to prevail on the Postal Service rule. That difference will shape arguments if the government returns with a fuller record. Kavanaugh's separate position adds another factor, suggesting openness after the election when timing concerns carry less weight. For administrators, the immediate issue was irreversibility. Once envelopes are printed, mailed and returned, a court cannot restore the prior state. That practical fact preserves existing procedures through November, while the constitutional dispute over federal control of the mails and state control of voter qualification stays unresolved.
