Judge again blocks Trump mail ballot executive order in ruling that’s likely to be swiftly appealed

A federal judge on Thursday halted — at least for now — attempts to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting.

The move stalled the directive for a second time only about a week before the first mail ballots are due to be sent out for the rapidly approaching midterm elections. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani placed a 14-day hold on the government implementing the order in a case that could be headed back to the Supreme Court, which on Monday overturned an earlier ruling of hers that had blocked Trump’s order from taking effect.

Talwani wrote in her ruling, “Plaintiff states have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms.”

The latest ruling came in advance of a Sept. 3 hearing after Democrats and voting rights groups refiled their lawsuits to comply with the recent Supreme Court decision. The high court’s conservative majority did not rule on the legality of Trump’s executive order. Still, it said the legal challenges against it that led Talwani to initially freeze it were filed too soon.

Now the administration has issued a formal rule governing whether the U.S. Postal Service will deliver states’ mail ballots, effectively restarting the legal fight.

The whipsawing legal battle has major ramifications for the midterms. Nearly one-third of Americans vote by mail and election officials contend there isn’t enough time to revise their systems to comply with the new Postal Service directives.

The Postal Service says it won’t deliver mail ballots unless states provide a list of voters who should receive them and format the envelopes in a certain way.

Democrats and voting rights groups contend the demand is unconstitutional. The Constitution, they note, grants states and, in some cases, Congress the power to make election rules — not the president or Postal Service.

That reasoning led courts to block Trump’s first executive order, issued last year, that sought to change election procedures, such as requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register.

The president has long targeted mail voting, which he falsely blames for his 2020 election loss even though he himself uses it to cast his ballot.

A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.

Trump issued the executive order targeting mail voting, his second one related to elections since he returned from office, in March.

Opponents quickly sued, but the administration argued the claims were premature because it hadn’t issued rules outlining how it would implement the order. The administration won an initial case in Washington, D.C., with that reasoning, but Talwani placed injunctions against implementing the order for the November midterms in two separate cases she heard in Boston.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday struck down one of those holds, finding it was premature.

Talwani, nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, removed the second injunction Wednesday. The plaintiffs then moved to refile their cases, citing the Postal Service’s publishing of its final rule, in hopes of winning a more durable victory. It’s likely the case will again end up in front of the high court.

Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press