A federal judge on Wednesday lifted a major obstacle to President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting, even as Democratic state officials filed a new court challenge with the midterm elections fast approaching.
The fresh round of legal wrangling comes just two days after the Supreme Court handed down a procedural ruling in Trump’s favor and could mean the issue lands before the high court again before the pivotal contests for control of Congress. The first mailed ballots are set to be sent out next week.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston agreed to lift an order prohibiting the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out Trump’s order for November’s elections. She wrote that she was “compelled” to do so after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that a similar injunction she granted in a separate case was premature.
But Talwani said the executive order could unleash “chaos” and referred to it as “likely unconstitutional.”
The administration can now move forward and implement a Postal Service rule published late Friday. It would require states to follow a uniform envelope style for mail ballots and to give the Postal Service a list of voters eligible to receive them.
The new lawsuit, filed by about two dozen Democratically controlled states — including Minnesota and Wisconsin — against the U.S. Postal Service, marked a new phase in the high-stakes litigation.
It came after the Supreme Court ruled against them in a separate case but did not say Trump’s order was legal.
The high court majority found the initial Democratic lawsuit was premature, but that was before the Republican administration issued a rule governing Postal Service delivery of mail ballots.
Election officials say it will be impossible to implement before the first wave of mail ballots are sent next week.
“Across the country, states are already deep into preparations for the 2026 elections. Now, at the last moment, the federal government is attempting to meddle in those preparations and potentially threaten countless Americans’ right to vote,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of 25 Democratic attorneys general filing the lawsuit, said in a statement. “USPS has no authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail.”
All previous challenges were filed before the administration published its mail ballot rule Friday night.
White House spokesperson Lauren Bis on Wednesday said the Postal Service’s proposals were “commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots” and that the administration would continue to work to implement them to boost “the safety and security of our elections.”
The Postal Service declined comment.


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