The Supreme Court late on Sept. 14 declined to lift a nationwide injunction blocking a United States Postal Service (USPS) rule on federal ballot mail, leaving it on hold for the 2026 midterms.
The ruling in USPS v. California took the form of an unsigned order.
“The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction,” the order said. “And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion. Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
The Trump administration had filed an emergency application on Sept. 6, asking the justices to pause an injunction issued on Sept. 4 by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts. Her ruling extended a temporary restraining order she granted on Aug. 27.
The injunction blocked the mandatory parts of the Postal Service’s final rule published on Aug. 26 that implements Section 3 of President Donald Trump’s executive order 14399. That provision would assign federal agencies a larger role in who receives a mailed ballot and how those ballots are processed by the USPS.
The Trump administration previously said the executive order would help to keep federal elections honest. The Department of Justice argued that the USPS was imposing mailpiece design and data standards under its general authority to regulate the mail, not deciding who is eligible to vote; states are still free to set voter lists and count ballots.
Talwani had said the postal rule could disenfranchise voters, was probably unlawful, and likely violated the U.S. Constitution, which gives states authority to run federal elections taking place within their borders. The judge previously said the postal agency presented no evidence of fraudulent mail-in voting that would justify the new Postal Service rule.
The judge held at the time that the USPS lacked authority to enforce the rule, and that, as election officials have said, given existing time constraints, complying with the rule for the midterms was “likely impossible.”
Talwani said Congress never agreed to delegate its powers under the Constitution’s elections clause to the USPS, so the rule “clashes with Congress’s statutory scheme, and is unconstitutional where it intrudes not only on … [those] powers but also that power left to the States.”
The judge added that even a small glitch in the new system would be problematic and could mean that ballots never go out, that eligible voters would almost certainly lose the chance to vote by mail, and that the disenfranchisement of plaintiff groups, such as the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, was “practically inevitable.”
In his concurrence, Kavanaugh said there is “at least a fair prospect” that the USPS rule is legal, but it is too late to use it for the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
“State and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections,” he said.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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