The justices on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to lift an injunction imposed by US District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston. The court said in an unsigned order that the government was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to Talwani’s preliminary injunction.
The decision means states can continue preparing and sending mail ballots under their existing procedures for the 3 November elections, which will determine control of Congress. The disputed Postal Service rule would have required election officials to submit lists of mail-ballot recipients, secure approval for ballot-envelope designs and use voter-specific barcodes on outgoing and return envelopes.
The rule would also have permitted the Postal Service to refuse to process ballots that failed to meet the new requirements or were linked to voters missing from the submitted lists. States and voting-rights groups argued that imposing the system before voting began would risk delaying or preventing delivery of lawful ballots.
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented. No other justice publicly dissented. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately that there was at least a fair prospect that the Postal Service possessed statutory authority to issue the rule, but said election officials lacked sufficient time to implement it reasonably before this year’s elections.
The administration had urged the court to allow the restrictions to take effect, arguing that the measures were designed to protect the mail system from being used for voter fraud. The Postal Service has described its approach as a non-partisan effort to ensure election mail is handled securely and reliably.
Opponents said the rule intruded on powers assigned to states and Congress under the Constitution and created operational demands that election administrators could not meet on the compressed timetable. Talwani, who blocked enforcement on 4 September, found that the challengers were likely to prevail and that compliance before the midterms could be impossible for some jurisdictions.
The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently declined to suspend her injunction. It said the rule was likely to disenfranchise many voters while producing little, if any, benefit in combating fraud.
A second federal judge, US District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington, separately blocked the rule on Sunday. Nichols, an appointee of Trump, concluded that the Postal Service lacked authority to impose key elements of the programme, adding another barrier to implementation before the election.
The legal fight follows a March executive order from President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to tighten election procedures, including the handling of mail ballots. The Postal Service issued its final rule in late August after an earlier round of litigation over the executive order itself.
The Supreme Court had on 24 August lifted an earlier injunction against parts of Trump’s order, but that ruling turned on procedural grounds and did not determine whether the final Postal Service rule was lawful. The court expressly left open challenges once the agency completed its regulations.
That distinction became central after the final rule was issued. A coalition of states, the District of Columbia and voting-rights organisations returned to court, arguing that the completed system exceeded federal authority and threatened disruption as some states were already preparing or distributing ballots.
The Postal Service’s plan included a federal portal through which election officials would upload voter information associated with individual ballot barcodes. Election administrators in several states told courts that technical and logistical obstacles prevented them from meeting the new standards on time.
Monday’s order does not finally resolve whether the Postal Service could impose similar requirements in a later election. The underlying lawsuits will continue, but the immediate effect is to prevent mandatory enforcement of the new system for the 2026 midterms.
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