By
Updated on: August 27, 2026 / 10:14 PM EDT
/ CBS News
Add CBS News on Google
Washington — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing its new requirements for mail voting for the November midterm elections.The order from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani is the latest development in the legal battle over President Trump's efforts to tighten the rules for mail voting ahead of the November elections. That fight escalated this week, after the Supreme Court halted a decision in a different case that had blocked the Trump administration from implementing provisions of an executive order that aims to restrict mail voting.On the heels of that ruling from the nation's highest court, a group of two dozen states and the District of Columbia filed a new lawsuit Wednesday seeking to block the new rule from the Postal Service, published last week, that regulates mail voting for the upcoming federal elections. A coalition of voting rights groups also challenged the new requirements, which were issued in response to Mr. Trump's executive order.The states and voting rights groups argued that Congress has not given the Postal Service the authority to set the rules for federal elections or mail voting. Instead, the Constitution gives states the power to administer elections, the challengers said.For 14 days, Talwani agreed to halt enforcement of several key provisions of the Postal Service's rule for the upcoming elections, which will determine which party controls the House and Senate."Based on the record presently before the court, Plaintiff States face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away," Talwani wrote in her 11-page order. "Most Plaintiff States have already ordered their mail ballots, and some are required by state law to send them to eligible voters as early as next week."The states, she continued, "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."
