The US Supreme Court on Monday disputed an emergency motion from the Department of Justice seeking a stay of a nationwide injunction preventing the United States Postal Service (USPS) from enforcing a new mail-in voting rule before the November midterm elections.
Comes from March 2026 Implementing regulation by President Donald Trump, the USPS announced its final administrative rule, Ballot papers for federal electionsEnd of August. The new provisions of the regulation, outlined in Section 705.24 of the Domestic Mail Manual, require states that use the Postal Service to administer elections to adhere to pre-approved ballot envelope designs, use special barcodes unique to each voter, and upload their voter rolls to a USPS electronic portal before election mail can be delivered.
In their court order in United States Postal Service v. CaliforniaThe Supreme Court found that the federal government was unlikely to succeed in its challenge. Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion emphasizing the practical impossibility of enforcing the new rules so close to the election, writing:
In my view, based on the information received by the Court at this interim stage, there is at least a reasonable prospect that the final rule will fall within the Postal Service’s statutory authority. However, application of the rule in the 2026 election would be arbitrary and capricious and violates the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to adequately implement the rule before the election.
Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. Alito argued that the Postal Service had broad legal authority to regulate use of the federal mail and criticized challengers’ claims for having little success, likening them to an incomplete “Hail Mary” passport. He noted that the injunction would cause irreparable harm to the federal government’s goals and that implementing the rule would improve the visibility of federal ballots to better detect voter fraud.
The Supreme Court’s decision confirms a September 4 order interim injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts, who found that immediate implementation of the final rule threatened to disenfranchise millions of voters. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the stay, ruling that the government had not established a proper right to a stay.
Monday’s ruling represents a significant change from an earlier Supreme Court decision in August that had temporarily allowed the president’s executive directive to continue for reasons of validity and maturity because the postmaster general had not yet issued a formal final decision.
