The Supreme Court on September 14 denied the Trump administration’s emergency request to revive a U.S. Postal Service rule imposing new requirements on mail ballots before the November 3 midterm elections. The order leaves in place U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s September 4 preliminary injunction while the underlying challenges continue; it is not a final judgment on the rule’s legality.
The August 21 rule would require state and local election officials to obtain Postal Service approval for ballot-envelope designs, use specified barcodes and upload lists of mail-ballot recipients to a federal portal. The Postal Service could refuse to process ballot mail that did not meet the new standards, a change election officials said could not be implemented safely after voting preparations had begun.
In a brief unsigned order, the Court said the government was unlikely to succeed in challenging Talwani’s injunction and that the equitable factors did not favor a stay. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that the rule should remain blocked for the 2026 election because officials lacked enough time to implement it, while indicating that the Postal Service could have a stronger authority argument in later litigation.
The Supreme Court application concerned Talwani’s Massachusetts injunction, not the separate preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols issued in Washington on September 13. Nichols also concluded that challengers were likely to show the rule exceeded the Postal Service’s authority and could cause otherwise valid ballots not to be counted.
The immediate result is that states may continue using their existing mail-ballot procedures for the midterms while both cases proceed. The Court did not hold that the Postal Service lacks all authority to regulate election mail; it declined emergency relief from an injunction against this specific August 21 rule.
