On Aug. 27, a U.S. district court judge blocked the implementation of federal rules that would carry out an executive order President Donald Trump (R) issued earlier this year prohibiting the delivery of absentee/mail-in ballots to anyone who is not enrolled by state election officials with the U.S. Postal Service. 

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's ruling came after USPS filed the final rules implementing the executive order on Aug. 21. The rules require officials to enroll voters in a USPS portal in order for them to receive a mail ballot. The physical ballot mail must also meet set standards and contain certain information, such as a unique ID number for each ballot envelope.

Talwani previously issued two injunctions blocking the implementation of portions of the order. But the U.S. Supreme Court stayed one of those two rulings, which had blocked two parts of the executive order in 23 states and the District of Columbia. In light of the Supreme Court's decision, Talwani then dissolved a separate injunction issued earlier in August that blocked the order from taking effect nationally.

In an unsigned order, the U.S. Supreme Court justices wrote that the federal government was likely to succeed on appeal because the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the order when they filed the lawsuit, and that the federal government would be irreparably harmed if the injunction remained in place.

"The Court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful,” the order said. “On that score, time will tell. But the Order itself does not harm the States, so the District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government from trying to implement it. And for the reasons discussed, that injunction is likely to irreparably harm the Government if it remains in place while the appellate process runs its course."

The court’s three justices appointed by Democratic presidents — Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor — dissented from the decision. 

In her dissent, Jackson wrote that the stay "violates well-established precedents concerning this Court’s equitable discretion and needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections."

After the Supreme Court ruling, attorneys general from 24 states and the District of Columbia filed a new lawsuit, alleging the final rules are unconstitutional. Other plaintiffs filed amended versions of their previous lawsuits to challenge the rules. The Department of Justice argued in their reply that the final rules were within USPS's authority.

Talwani issued a temporary restraining order, requiring USPS to pause the implementation or enforcement of parts of the rules for 14 days. In her order, Talwani wrote that "The court finds Plaintiffs likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that (1) the USPS lacked authority to issue the Final Rule; (2) the Final Rule is unconstitutional in imposing these requirements on the States; and (3) the Final Rule is unconstitutional in prohibiting non-compliant State and local officials from using the United States Postal Service to mail ballots."

A hearing on a temporary injunction, which would block the rules' implementation for longer than 14 days, will take place on Sept. 3.

In the final rules filed on Aug. 21, USPS said, "Given injunctions currently in place ... the Postal Service will not take actions to implement the rule specifically for the 2026 election unless and until the government obtains relief from those injunctions. If the government obtains timely relief from the injunctions, implementation immediately thereafter will provide election officials as much time as possible before the next election to comply with the rule’s preparation standards for Federal Ballot Mail envelopes, and to prepare to submit data to the Federal Ballot Mail Portal ('Portal'), before the mail-in and absentee ballots subject to this rule are mailed."

Every state has a method allowing voters to cast ballots without visiting a physical polling place. 

Thirteen states require voters to provide a valid excuse to vote by mail. Twenty-nine states allow any eligible voter to cast an absentee/mail-in ballot. Eight states have all-mail voting systems in which every eligible voter is automatically sent a mail ballot.