Story Highlights
- U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the Postal Service’s proposed rule violates a 2021 settlement requiring timely delivery of election mail
- The decision extends nationwide a block that previously applied only to roughly two dozen states that had separately sued
- It follows a June 25 ruling from a Boston-based judge that found Trump’s underlying executive order unconstitutional and exceeded presidential authority
What Happened
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who sits in Washington, D.C., ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Postal Service cannot implement its proposed regulations for carrying out Trump’s March 2026 executive order on mail-in voting. The order had directed USPS to withhold ballot delivery from voters in any state that declined to submit lists of its mail-in voters to the federal government, along with other new requirements for state mail voting programs, including individualized tracking barcodes on ballot envelopes.
Sullivan found that the Postal Service’s proposed rule directly violated a 2021 settlement agreement stemming from a 2020 lawsuit the NAACP brought against the agency after pandemic-era policy changes slowed mail delivery ahead of that year’s election. That settlement required USPS to publish and follow guidance documents prioritizing “the monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail,” and it gave courts ongoing authority to oversee the agency’s compliance. “The Proposed Rule violates paragraph 2 of the Agreement because the Postal Service cannot post documents reflecting ‘practices and policies for prioritizing the monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail’ if its policies provide that it will not accept ‘noncompliant mailing,'” Sullivan wrote, adding that the agency could not lawfully refuse to mail ballots to voters in states that decline to certify voter lists.
Sullivan’s ruling builds on an earlier, more limited decision in which nearly two dozen states that separately challenged the order in court had already succeeded in blocking its implementation within their borders. His ruling on Wednesday extends that block nationwide, meaning USPS cannot implement the disputed rule anywhere in the country regardless of whether a given state was party to the original lawsuit.
The ruling comes just one week after a separate and more sweeping defeat for the administration. On June 25, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee based in Boston, ruled that major portions of Trump’s underlying executive order were “legally void,” finding it exceeded the president’s constitutional authority and violated the separation of powers by intruding on states’ constitutional role in administering elections. “The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Talwani wrote in her 37-page opinion. Her ruling also blocked a related effort by the Department of Homeland Security to compile a national list of voting-age citizens using federal databases, an initiative that voting rights advocates warned could be used to conduct aggressive voter roll purges. Postmaster General David Steiner had confirmed in congressional testimony that, under the proposed rule, USPS would decline to deliver ballots to voters in any state that refused to share its voter data with federal authorities.
Why It Matters
The rulings represent a significant check on presidential authority over an area the Constitution explicitly assigns to states and Congress, not the executive branch. Both judges found, in separate but reinforcing opinions, that neither the president nor the Postal Service possesses the legal authority to dictate which citizens receive mail ballots or to condition ballot delivery on states surrendering voter data to federal agencies. That finding matters well beyond this single order, as it reaffirms limits on executive power over election administration at a moment when the administration has pursued an aggressive agenda on voting rules.
For voters, the practical stakes are substantial. Had the order taken full effect, residents of any state declining to comply with the federal data-sharing demand could have found their mail ballots withheld entirely, a scenario voting rights groups warned would have effectively disenfranchised eligible voters through bureaucratic noncompliance by their state government rather than any individual wrongdoing. The rulings preserve the status quo for the millions of Americans, particularly seniors, disabled voters, and rural residents, who rely on mail voting as their primary means of participating in elections.
The controversy also reflects the broader, long-running dispute over the security of mail-in voting. Trump has repeatedly claimed, without substantiating evidence, that mail voting is prone to significant fraud, an assertion that has been echoed in numerous investigations and found to be exceedingly rare. That claim has nonetheless become a central pillar of his years-long effort to reshape how ballots are cast and counted, an effort that now faces mounting judicial resistance just months before the November midterms, in which control of both chambers of Congress is at stake.
Economic and Global Context
While primarily a legal and political story rather than an economic one, the ruling carries real fiscal implications for the Postal Service, an agency already under significant financial strain. Implementing the barcode tracking and list-verification systems required by Trump’s order would have required substantial new infrastructure and administrative costs at a time when USPS continues to operate under tight budget constraints and has faced years of controversy over service reliability and staffing.
The ruling also arrives amid a broader wave of election-related litigation this year. It follows a separate Supreme Court decision upholding state laws that allow late-arriving mailed ballots to be counted, another defeat for Trump-aligned efforts to tighten mail voting rules nationally. Together, these rulings suggest the federal judiciary, including justices and judges appointed by presidents of both parties, has been broadly skeptical of executive branch attempts to unilaterally rewrite election administration rules without congressional authorization.
Implications
The Trump administration is expected to appeal Sullivan’s ruling, and the case may eventually reach the Supreme Court given the constitutional questions at stake regarding the separation of powers between federal and state authority over elections. Given the Court’s recent rulings on related mail-ballot questions, the ultimate outcome remains genuinely uncertain.
In the meantime, state election officials can proceed with existing mail voting procedures without fear of federal interference through the Postal Service, providing a measure of stability as jurisdictions prepare for primary contests and the general midterm election in November. Voting rights organizations, including the NAACP, are likely to continue monitoring USPS compliance closely, given the agency’s role in the underlying 2021 settlement.
For Republican and Democratic strategists alike, the ruling ensures that mail voting rules remain a live and contested issue heading into a midterm cycle in which control of Congress hangs in the balance, with both parties likely to continue framing the litigation as central to their broader messaging about election integrity and voter access.
Sources
“US Postal Service cannot carry out Trump order on mail ballot delivery, judge rules”
