A federal appeals court has rejected President Donald Trump’s request to immediately revive a new U.S. Postal Service rule that would impose additional requirements on mail-in ballots ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections.
The decision Thursday by a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston leaves in place a lower-court injunction blocking the Postal Service from enforcing the controversial rule.
The ruling represents another legal setback for the Trump administration as the fight over mail-in voting moves closer to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court is already considering a separate request from the administration to allow the restrictions to take effect.
What Trump’s administration wanted
The dispute began with an executive order Trump issued earlier this year seeking to establish new federal requirements for mail-in voting.
Under the administration’s plan, the Postal Service would implement new procedures involving ballot envelopes, voter information and federal verification requirements. The USPS rule would require states to meet certain federal conditions before election ballots could be processed through the mail.
Among the requirements are specific ballot-envelope standards and the submission of voter information to a federal system. The administration has argued that the measures are intended to improve election security and prevent fraudulent ballots from entering the mail system.
However, voting-rights organizations and Democratic-led states challenged the policy in court, arguing that the president does not have the constitutional authority to impose nationwide changes to how states conduct elections.
Why the court blocked the rule
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani previously issued an injunction preventing the Postal Service from enforcing the rule.
The judge concluded that the policy could create a significant risk of voters being disenfranchised, particularly because the new requirements were being introduced close to the midterm elections.
The appeals court declined to suspend that injunction, meaning the restrictions remain blocked while the legal fight continues.
The judges also agreed with arguments that federal election procedures are largely governed by Congress and the states, raising serious questions about whether the executive branch can unilaterally impose the changes through a presidential order.
Election officials warn of possible problems
The timing of the proposed changes has become one of the central issues in the case.
Election officials have warned that several states are already preparing or sending mail ballots to voters. Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin are among the states where mail-ballot distribution has already begun.
Officials have argued that implementing a completely new federal verification and ballot-processing system this late in the election cycle could create confusion and potentially prevent legitimate ballots from being delivered on time.
A Postal Service whistleblower has also raised concerns about the rushed development of technology intended to support the new system. The whistleblower alleged that the system was being developed much faster than a project of this scale would normally take and could be vulnerable to errors.
Trump administration continues its legal fight
The Trump administration has argued that the restrictions are reasonable and necessary to protect the integrity of elections.
Administration lawyers have urged the Supreme Court to intervene quickly, warning that uncertainty surrounding the rules could itself create confusion as states prepare for the midterms.
The administration has already made multiple requests to the Supreme Court seeking permission to move forward with the restrictions. The Supreme Court has previously allowed certain aspects of the administration's plans to proceed temporarily, but it has not issued a final ruling on the legality of the new Postal Service rule.
The Supreme Court, which currently has a 6-3 conservative majority, is now positioned to play a potentially decisive role in determining whether the restrictions can be implemented.
Critics say voters could be affected
Voting-rights groups and Democratic-led states have strongly opposed the administration's plan.
They argue that legitimate voters could be caught by technical problems involving voter lists, ballot envelopes or federal verification systems. Their concern is that a voter could follow all of the rules established by their state but still have a ballot delayed or rejected because of a federal requirement.
The groups also argue that election administration has traditionally been handled by states and that the president cannot simply rewrite state election procedures through an executive order.
What happens next?
For now, the Postal Service cannot enforce the contested rule while the lower-court injunction remains in effect.
The next major decision could come from the U.S. Supreme Court, which is considering the administration's request to lift the injunction and allow the rules to take effect.
The case is unfolding just weeks before the November midterm elections, making the Supreme Court's eventual decision particularly important for voters who rely on mail ballots.
The dispute is therefore about more than a Postal Service regulation. It raises a broader constitutional question over how much authority the president has to regulate federal aspects of elections and where the power to set voting rules ultimately belongs.
For voters, the immediate message is that the challenged Postal Service restrictions remain blocked while the courts consider the case. The final outcome could determine whether the federal government gains new authority over how mail ballots are handled in future elections.
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