U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, June 29, 2026.
Graham Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Monday night rejected the Trump administration’s request to lift a judicial block on a controversial U.S. Postal Service rule that critics fear would make it more difficult to vote by mail in the upcoming midterm elections.
In an unsigned order, the Supreme Court said the administration’s “challenge is unlikely to be successful” against a preliminary injunction by a federal judge in Boston blocking the application of USPS rules in November’s national elections.
The decision comes less than two months before voting to determine which political party controls each parliament. President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, agreed with the ruling in a statement, saying, “There is at least a reasonable prospect that the final rule will fall within the scope of the Postal Service’s statutory authority.”
“However, applying this rule in the 2026 election would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, because state and local election officials will not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the election,” Kavanaugh added. “Therefore, I agree to deny your application for stay.”
Two of Mr. Kavanaugh’s fellow conservatives on the nine-judge court, Justices Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented from a decision issued in late August denying the injunction against the Postal Service rules.
The rule implements an executive order issued by President Trump in March that established new standards for ballot envelopes and required states to create a list of voters eligible to receive mail-in ballots.
Monday’s ruling by the Supreme Court will only prevent the Postal Service’s rules from being used in the November election. It is also possible that a court will allow the rule to apply in future elections.
Alito said in a written dissent that while some of the plaintiffs who filed suit challenging the Postal Service’s rules lacked legal standing to do so, “other plaintiffs are seeking what this court recently called a ‘Hail Mary pass’ that is ‘rarely successful.'”
“The administration has a strong interest in enforcing this rule, which will ‘increase the visibility of federal ballot mail’ to better detect election fraud,” Alito wrote.
“On the other hand, the plaintiff states assert the practical implications of implementing this rule so close to the midterm elections. I take that issue very seriously, but that is not enough to convince me to deny its application.”
“Today, the Supreme Court refused to allow the federal government to disrupt elections just weeks before Election Day,” Selina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement.
“The Postal Service exists to deliver mail to Americans, not to rewrite election rules, request personal information from voters, or decide which ballots go through the system,” Stewart said. “This is an extraordinary attempt to interfere with voting in all 50 states, and voters should never have been put in this position. Voters should never be caught in the middle of a political power struggle.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, part of the coalition that sued to block the rule, said in a statement: “I am truly relieved that the court has granted this stay.”
“Voters shouldn’t have to wonder whether their legally cast votes will be counted just because the federal government suddenly changed the rules,” James said. “We will continue to fight to ensure every eligible vote is counted in November. Now, I encourage all eligible Americans to go to the polls and vote early.”
