US judge blocks Trump mail voting order before midterm ballots go out

Washington,UPDATED: Aug 28, 2026 08:06 IST

A US federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Donald Trump administration from enforcing an executive order that would limit mail voting, pausing the move for two weeks just as the first postal ballots for the midterm elections are about to be sent out. US District Court Judge Indira Talwani’s order marks the second time the directive has been stalled, with nearly one-third of Americans voting by mail and election officials saying there is no time to rework their systems before the polls.

The latest order came days after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority lifted an earlier ruling by Talwani on procedural grounds, without deciding whether Trump’s executive order was legal. Democrats and voting rights groups then refiled their cases after the administration issued a formal rule on how the US Postal Service would handle states’ mail ballots, setting up another round in a legal fight that could return to the high court.

The Postal Service has said it will not deliver mail ballots unless states provide a list of voters who should receive them and format ballot envelopes in a specified way. Talwani said states could not make those changes in time. “Plaintiff states have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms,” she wrote. A hearing in the case is scheduled for September 3.

Democrats and voting rights groups have argued that the demand is unconstitutional, saying the Constitution gives states and, in some cases, Congress the power to set election rules, not the president or the Postal Service. Courts had earlier blocked Trump’s first executive order on elections, issued last year, which sought changes including requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register. Trump issued the latest order targeting mail voting in March, his second election-related executive order since returning to office.

The administration had earlier argued that challenges to the order were premature because no implementation rules had been issued, and the Supreme Court accepted that reasoning when it struck down one of Talwani’s previous injunctions on Monday. Talwani then removed a second injunction on Wednesday, after which the plaintiffs refiled their cases following the Postal Service’s final rule. The article also noted that Trump has long targeted mail voting and has falsely blamed it for his 2020 election loss, even though he himself votes by mail, while a 2025 Brookings Institution report found only about four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail ballots cast.

For now, Talwani’s latest order has prevented the new mail voting requirements from taking effect ahead of the midterms, but with a hearing due next week and an appeal to the Supreme Court likely, the dispute over who can set the rules for mail ballots remains unresolved.

With PTI Inputs

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