States Sue Again as Courts Clear the Way for Trump's Mail-Ballot Rules

Two federal court rulings this week stripped away the last injunctions blocking a Trump administration plan to impose new federal controls on mail-in voting, and within hours a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia filed a new lawsuit trying to stop it again. The clash, playing out in the U.S. District Court in Boston and the Supreme Court over the past four days, centers on an executive order President Trump signed in March directing the Postal Service to reject mail ballots from voters not enrolled on federal lists, just as election officials in several states prepare to begin printing and mailing ballots for the November midterms.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani vacated her own nationwide injunction against the plan, telling the Justice Department she was "compelled" to do so by a Supreme Court order two days earlier. Within hours, attorneys general from Massachusetts, California, New York, Nevada, Washington and 19 other states, along with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, filed a fresh complaint in the same Boston courthouse targeting the Postal Service's newly finalized rule directly, arguing it still cannot lawfully take effect in time for this year's elections.

The Numbers

The dispute turns on a 95-page final rule the Postal Service issued August 21 and formally published in the Federal Register on August 26. It would require election officials to enroll every mail voter in a new "Federal Ballot Mail Portal" at least two business days before an outgoing mailing, submit ballot-envelope designs for federal approval, and affix unique Intelligent Mail barcodes to track ballots in both directions. The rule covers federal general, special and runoff elections but not primaries or military and overseas ballots. Mail voting is not a marginal method: according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's 2024 Election Administration and Voting Survey, roughly 30 percent of ballots cast nationwide in the last presidential election were returned by mail. The new lawsuit was joined by 24 states plus D.C. and Pennsylvania's governor; the Supreme Court's stay two days earlier came on a 6-3 vote.

How the Legal Fight Got Here

Trump's order, formally titled "Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections," directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile state-by-state lists of confirmed citizens and ordered the Postal Service to begin rulemaking barring delivery of ballots to anyone not on a state's approved list. Democratic attorneys general sued within days, arguing the order usurped states' constitutional authority over their own elections. A separate suit followed from voting-rights groups, including the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, in the case League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump. Judge Talwani sided with the challengers in both cases, and the First Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause her rulings while the administration appealed.

That changed August 24, when the Supreme Court, over the dissent of its three Democratic-appointed justices, granted the administration's request to stay the injunction in the states' case pending appeal, finding the states had sued before the order's provisions had actually been implemented. The Justice Department immediately asked Talwani to apply the same logic to the separate voting-rights case, arguing the high court's reasoning "leaves no room for further dispute." She agreed Wednesday, though she also suggested the plaintiffs could still amend their complaint now that the Postal Service's rule has been finalized — leaving the door open to renewed litigation, which came within hours.

Reaction on Both Sides

State officials and voting-rights advocates argued the newly finalized rule, not just the underlying order, is unlawful on its own terms. In a statement announcing the new suit, New York Attorney General Letitia James said "the federal government is attempting to meddle in those preparations and potentially threaten countless Americans' right to vote," adding that "the USPS has no authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail." California Attorney General Rob Bonta said "this fight is far from over and we are confident that the facts and the law are on our side," and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, reacting to the Supreme Court's stay earlier in the week, warned that the decision "creates unnecessary confusion as the November election approaches."

"USPS's decision to rush this blatantly unconstitutional rule into effect just weeks before an election is the latest step in a rollout that has sown confusion at every turn and now threatens to disenfranchise voters who did everything right. This is chaos by design, and voters are the ones who will pay for it."

That statement came from Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, in a press release announcing a parallel motion by voting-rights groups to block the rule. The White House took the opposite view. A spokesperson called the Supreme Court's stay "a major win for the security of American elections" and described the underlying provisions as "commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders."

Who Is Affected

The immediate stakes fall on state and local election officials who administer mail voting and on the millions of voters who rely on it, particularly older voters, people with disabilities, rural residents and members of the military and overseas citizens, though the rule exempts ballots covered by federal overseas-voter law. Election administrators in several of the plaintiff states say they cannot meet the portal-enrollment and barcode requirements on short notice without risking delays to ballots that, in some states, are scheduled to begin going out to voters within the next two weeks. The Postal Service itself has said it does not intend to enforce the rule for this year's elections unless the government first "obtains relief from" the outstanding injunctions — relief it now has in one case and does not yet have, pending the new suit, in the other.

What Happens Next

The new complaint asks the Boston court for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to block the rule while litigation proceeds, meaning Talwani could be asked within days to rule again on a plan she has already found likely unconstitutional once before. Separately, the underlying appeal in the states' original case continues before the First Circuit, and the administration is expected to seek a writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to review the merits of the executive order itself rather than simply the question of standing that produced this week's stay. With ballots for the November 3 midterms due to begin reaching voters in the coming weeks in several states, election officials, campaigns and the courts are now working on a compressed timeline that leaves little room for further delay in either direction.