The Postal Service mail-ballot rule: issued for the elections order, then blocked twice as ballots went out

The rule was stayed in part eight weeks before the midterms and then preliminarily enjoined as ballots began going out, on findings that the Postal Service likely lacked authority and that the rule was likely unconstitutional. The rule’s own text defers implementation for the 2026 election while the injunctions stand

The rule exists to carry out an executive order. The Postal Service's final rule, Ballot Mail for Federal Elections, was issued to implement Executive Order 14399 of March 31, 2026, and took effect on August 21, 2026. As the district court described it, the rule conditions the mailing of federal-election ballots on Postal Service approval of the envelope and on election officials uploading each voter's name, address and barcode to a Postal Service portal. The rule itself states that the Postal Service will not act to implement it for the 2026 election unless and until the government obtains relief from the injunctions already in place.

A federal court has now blocked it twice. On August 27, 2026 Judge Indira Talwani granted a temporary restraining order staying key sections, finding the plaintiffs likely to succeed on three claims: that the Postal Service lacked authority to issue the rule, that it is unconstitutional in imposing these requirements on the states, and that it is unconstitutional in barring non-compliant state and local officials from using the Postal Service to mail ballots. She found compliance practically impossible for the 2026 midterms, and recorded that the record continued to lack any evidence of fraudulent absentee or mail-in voting. On September 4, 2026, as North Carolina began mailing ballots, she issued a preliminary injunction, finding the rule likely unlawful and unconstitutional and voter disenfranchisement practically inevitable if it remained in place. She had already enjoined key pillars of the underlying executive order on June 25, 2026, writing that no law enacted by Congress delegates authority to control mail-in voting to the Postal Service.

Two things cut the other way. On August 24, 2026 the Supreme Court stayed Talwani's earlier injunction in the 23-state case, agreeing that the government was likely to succeed on its jurisdictional argument about standing and ripeness, and describing the executive order as an internal directive; it did not hold the order or any rule lawful. The Solicitor General argues that the rule imposes only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements under longstanding Postal Service rulemaking authority, and that it leaves voter eligibility to the states. The element here is not a court finding of retaliation; no court has made one. What the documents establish is a rule issued to implement a presidential order, conditioning access to the mail for ballots, twice found likely to exceed the agency's authority and likely unconstitutional, in a record containing no evidence of the fraud it was said to address. The executive order itself is recorded at ELP-03.

Documented; the final rule, the August 27 order and the Supreme Court’s August 24 per curiam are primary documents. The September 4 preliminary injunction was not retrieved and reaches this entry through reporting

Preliminary injunction in force as of September 4, 2026; findings are at the likelihood stage and no final judgment exists. The Supreme Court’s August 24 stay went to jurisdiction, not the merits. The government’s stay application was pending

Executive Order 14399 signed 2026-03-31 (recorded at ELP-03); proposed rule unveiled 2026-05-29; published in the Federal Register 2026-06-02; key pillars of the order enjoined 2026-06-25; Supreme Court stay of that injunction 2026-08-24; final rule effective 2026-08-21; temporary restraining order 2026-08-27; preliminary injunction 2026-09-04