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Updated on: September 4, 2026 / 6:37 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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Washington — A federal judge on Friday extended her block on the U.S. Postal Service's new requirements for mail voting, as states prepare to begin sending mail ballots to voters for the November midterm elections.U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction barring the agency from enforcing the rules, which were finalized and published late last month, during the midterms. Talwani had temporarily blocked the measure on Aug. 26 and, following a hearing Thursday, agreed to grant a request for longer relief sought by two dozen Democratic-led states and voting rights groups.In her 49-page decision, the judge said the Postal Service's new rules are likely unconstitutional and said states' difficulties with implementing the regulations so close to the November elections "nearly guarantee[s] significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters."The judge also said the Postal Service likely exceeded its authority by moving ahead with the new requirements because "the Constitution reserves election regulation to Congress and the States, Congress has not authorized the USPS to make requirements of States before permitting use of the USPS for mailing their ballots, and ... the Final Rule impermissibly establishes a new category of nonmailable material.""Unauthorized by the Elections Clause, the Final Rule clashes with Congress's statutory scheme, and is unconstitutional where it intrudes not only on Congress's Elections Clause powers but also that power left to the States," she wrote.Talwani reiterated concerns raised by state and local election officials about their ability to comply with the regulations in the weeks before the election and said they are already "consumed" with completing other election-related tasks, like registering voters, maintaining voter lists, conducting early voting and processing applications to vote by mail."The Final Rule's new requirements would be an extraordinary amount of work for local officials at any time," she wrote. "But imposing these mandates on election officials at present poses greater difficulties than otherwise because election officials are actively administering elections."
