Voters drop their ballots into official ballot boxes inside City Hall during the primary election on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in San Francisco, California, USA.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Monday sided with President Donald Trump for now in his effort to impose sweeping new restrictions on the distribution of mail-in ballots, putting on hold a lower court ruling that blocked key parts of the plan for November’s midterm elections.
Citing three dissenting opinions, the justices suspended Boston U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s ruling that blocked the Trump administration from implementing parts of a March executive order involving the U.S. Postal Service and voter eligibility lists. The court’s three liberal justices dissented.
However, the decision does not mean the Postal Service can immediately implement a new vote-by-mail system.
A separate nationwide injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston on Aug. 11 still prevents the USPS from implementing new procedures for the Nov. 3 election. The government will also have to overcome that order.
This distinction was central to the Supreme Court’s decision.
The majority said President Trump’s executive order itself does not require states to change how they conduct elections. Instead, it directs federal agencies to develop policies that could later impose requirements on states. At the time 23 states and Washington, D.C. challenged the order, these policies had not yet been implemented, so the court said the challenge was premature.
The justices emphasized that they were not determining whether Trump’s orders or the policies developed based on them were ultimately legal.
“The court’s disposition of this application does not mean that the steps taken by the government to implement this order are necessarily lawful,” the majority said. “On that score, time will tell.”
The Postal Service last week finalized rules aimed at implementing some of President Trump’s orders, including new requirements for ballot envelopes and barcodes and information states must provide to the USPS. Those rules remain blocked by Talwani’s separate injunction.
The case now returns to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, where the underlying legal battle continues. Some states are already preparing to send ballots to military and overseas voters in early September.
