Judge Once Again Bars Postal Service From Restricting Mail-In Vote
New York Times · LC · trust 60/100
After reviewing the agency’s final plan to comply with President Trump’s demands, a federal judge barred the Postal Service from imposing new restrictions on mail-in voting.
Listen · 6:26 min Share full article In a filing on Thursday, the Postal Service denied that its proposal left any room for it to second-guess states on which voters were eligible to cast a ballot. Credit... Zack Wittman for The New York Times By Zach Montague
Federal District Judge Indira Talwani had cleared the way for the Postal Service to move forward just the day before, but on Thursday, she issued a new order concluding that the agency’s plan, released late on Friday, appeared to overstep its legal mandate and could spark chaos by changing rules fewer than 70 days before an election.
She wrote that a group of Democratic-led states that had sued “face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away.”
“Most plaintiff states have already ordered their mail ballots, and some are required by state law to send them to eligible voters as early as next week,” she added.
She wrote that while the Supreme Court had “admonished” her on Monday that the Postal Service had not finalized any changes when the groups sued initially, making court action premature, the stakes had changed since then because of the step the agency took Friday to formalize its plan.
Her ruling marked the third court decision on the issue in less than a week, a whipsaw of action that threatened to confuse voters . But each delay has reduced the administration’s chances of clearing the legal hurdles to execute its logistically complicated mail-in ballot plan before the November election. She blocked the rule from taking effect for 14 days, and she had previously scheduled a hearing to discuss the legality of the rule on Sept. 3.
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