A federal judge nominated by President Trump issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Postal Service from enforcing new mail-ballot regulations, a ruling that lands just as the Supreme Court weighs the administration's appeal of a separate order out of Boston.
U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, sitting in Washington, D.C., ordered late Sunday that the Postal Service may not implement the restrictions stemming from Trump's executive order on mail balloting, the Associated Press reported. Nichols, a Trump appointee, concluded that voters faced real, measurable harm if the rule stood, writing that plaintiffs showed "an increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections."
The injunction makes Nichols the second federal judge to freeze the regulation. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee in Boston, had already issued her own order barring the Postal Service from enforcing the rule ahead of the midterm elections. The Supreme Court lifted Talwani's earlier freeze late last month, but plaintiffs in both cities refiled their lawsuits after the Postal Service formally published the new regulations on August 21.
Now the high court is poised to weigh in again, with the administration's appeal of Talwani's latest Boston order already before the justices. The timing is tight. Mail ballots are already going out in at least three states, Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and more states are preparing to distribute them this week.
Back in May, Nichols refused to block the executive order. His reasoning then was straightforward: no agency had acted on it yet, and the lawsuit was premature. As Fox News reported at the time, Nichols found the claimed harm "speculative" and noted that the order "does not command Plaintiffs to do anything."
That changed on August 21, when the Postal Service published formal regulations carrying out the executive order. The new rule requires two things: all ballot envelope designs must be pre-approved by the Postal Service, and states must upload the identities of voters set to receive mail ballots into an online portal that, as of the injunction, still is not operational.
With the rule now on the books and midterms approaching, Nichols found the situation materially different from the one he evaluated in May. Plaintiffs refiled, and this time the judge agreed the threat was concrete enough to warrant an injunction. The Washington Examiner reported that Nichols concluded the groups challenging the rule were likely to prove that central parts of it exceeded the authority Congress granted to the Postal Service.
"The public has a strong interest in ensuring that doesn't happen."
That line from Nichols' order captures the core of his reasoning: whatever the policy merits of tightening mail-ballot procedures, doing so through a regulation that likely exceeds USPS authority, with an inactive portal and ballots already in the mail, creates a real risk that lawful votes go uncounted.
The logistical objections were not limited to courtrooms. Election officials said it would be impossible to implement the changes this close to a general election. The Postal Service workers' union pushed back as well, arguing that verifying voter eligibility is not the job of postal workers. A whistleblower report to Congress warned that millions of people could lose the ability to have their votes counted if the rule took effect for the midterms.
Those objections carry weight regardless of where one stands on mail-ballot policy. The administration's goal, ensuring that mail ballots go only to eligible voters, is a legitimate election-integrity objective. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the restrictions precisely because it views the current system as vulnerable to fraud and administrative sloppiness.
But the execution matters as much as the principle. A portal that does not work cannot verify anyone. Envelope pre-approval requirements imposed weeks before an election, with ballots already in transit, create exactly the kind of chaos that undermines public confidence in the process, the very problem the executive order was meant to fix.
The legal landscape now features parallel injunctions from two federal courts. Talwani's Boston order and Nichols' Washington order both bar the Postal Service from enforcing the rule. The Supreme Court previously handed the administration a win by lifting Talwani's earlier freeze, but that victory proved short-lived once plaintiffs refiled after the August 21 rule was published.
The fact that Nichols, a Trump nominee, reached the same conclusion as Talwani, an Obama appointee, complicates the administration's position. This is not a case of a hostile, ideologically opposed judiciary reflexively blocking a Republican president. The New York Post noted the significance of a Trump-appointed judge issuing the second block, a detail that weakens any argument that the rulings are purely partisan.
The Supreme Court now faces a sharper question than it did weeks ago. When it lifted Talwani's freeze, the regulation was freshly issued and the midterms were further off. Now two district judges have reviewed the rule on the merits and found it likely exceeds the Postal Service's statutory authority. Ballots are already in voters' hands. And the online portal the rule depends on still does not function.
Earlier in this legal saga, an appeals court blocked the mail-in voting order in 23 states, adding another layer to the judicial resistance the administration has encountered.
Trump signed the executive order earlier this year. It directed the Department of Homeland Security to use Social Security Administration data to compile citizenship lists and instructed the Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to individuals on those lists. States were to receive the citizenship lists within 60 days of federal elections, with procedures for individuals and states to correct inaccuracies.
On paper, that framework has a clear election-integrity rationale. In practice, the rollout created the problems the courts have now flagged. The Postal Service published its implementing regulations on August 21, barely weeks before ballots started going out. The online portal that states were supposed to use to upload voter identities was not ready. And the regulation's requirement that ballot envelopes be pre-approved by the Postal Service imposed a new bureaucratic step on election administrators already deep into their mailing cycles.
When the White House won the May ruling from Nichols, spokeswoman Abigail Jackson called it "a decisive victory for the rule of law" and said it dealt "a blow against the Democrat strategy of suing first and finding legal arguments later." That framing made sense in May, when no agency had acted and the harm was theoretical. It is harder to sustain now that the Postal Service has acted, and two federal judges, including the same Trump appointee, have found the resulting regulation likely illegal.
Meanwhile, election officials have urged the Supreme Court to block the order outright, arguing the midterm calendar leaves no room for the kind of wholesale changes the rule demands.
Several critical questions remain unresolved. Did the Postal Service exceed its statutory authority by requiring ballot envelope pre-approval and voter-identity uploads, functions that have historically belonged to state election administrators? Can a regulation that depends on an inactive portal survive legal scrutiny when ballots are already in the mail? And does the administration's legitimate interest in election integrity justify a rule that, by the courts' assessment, risks leaving lawful votes uncounted?
The justices may also have to reckon with the timeline they helped create. By lifting Talwani's earlier freeze, the Supreme Court allowed the Postal Service to proceed with publishing the August 21 rule, which then triggered the refiled lawsuits and the new injunctions the court must now evaluate. The legal cycle has moved faster than the bureaucratic machinery the rule depends on.
Election integrity is not a partisan cause. Voters of every persuasion deserve confidence that their ballots will be counted and that only eligible citizens are casting them. But confidence requires competence. A rule built on an inactive portal, imposed weeks before an election, and blocked by the president's own judicial appointee does not inspire it.
Getting election integrity right matters too much to get the execution this wrong.
