The U.S. Postal Service has published a finalized rule demanding states turn over lists of voters receiving mail-in ballots, but an Obama-appointed judge's injunction blocks it from taking effect before the midterms.
USPS posted the rule Friday, with an official Federal Register publication date of Aug. 26. The regulation requires every state that plans to route mail-in or absentee ballots through the Postal Service to enroll each voter on a participation list maintained by the agency. States must submit each voter's name and address and affix a uniquely serialized Intelligent Mail barcode, a tracking identifier, on both the outgoing ballot and the return envelope. Fox News Digital reported the rule was first proposed on June 2.
The rule carries out a March 31 executive order from President Trump directing USPS to require states to notify the agency at least 90 days before any election in which they intend to use postal delivery for ballots. States must also send USPS a list of eligible voters slated to receive a mail-in ballot at least 60 days before Election Day.
None of it can take effect right now. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama, issued a preliminary injunction in June, ruling that two sections of Trump's executive order were unconstitutional. One of those sections was the USPS mail-in ballot provision. In July, Talwani renewed the injunction, siding with plaintiffs in League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump and barring USPS from enforcing the rule.
The finalized rule can only govern the upcoming midterm elections if a federal court lifts the injunction first.
Postmaster General David Steiner defended the regulation when it was first proposed in June. His stated rationale was straightforward: accountability at every step of the mail-ballot pipeline.
Steiner framed the rule as a verification tool, telling reporters the goal is to ensure:
"we match the ballots that a state believes they're sending out to what actually gets sent out."
That principle, confirming that a ballot mailed by a state actually reaches the voter it was addressed to, and that the return envelope can be tracked, is the kind of basic chain-of-custody measure that most Americans would expect from any system handling sensitive documents. The Postal Service already uses Intelligent Mail barcodes to track ordinary packages. Applying the same tracking to ballots is, by the administration's logic, an extension of existing infrastructure rather than a new burden.
The broader legal fight over election integrity has grown more contentious in recent months. An appeals court blocked Trump's mail-in voting order in 23 states, adding another layer to the dispute.
The finalized rule spells out the enrollment requirement in plain terms:
"Any state that intends to receive mail-in or absentee ballots from individual voters through the Postal Service must ensure that such individuals have been enrolled with the Postal Service for inclusion on the state's Mail-In and Absentee Participation List."
Before Talwani renewed the injunction in July, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division filed an opposition brief. The administration's argument rested on the ripeness doctrine, a legal principle that courts should not rule on disputes until the challenged action actually causes harm.
The DOJ filing stated:
"Plaintiffs cannot demonstrate they suffer any particularized injury from ongoing policymaking deliberations within the Executive Branch. Instead, their concern is with possible 'action that the [government] might take in the future.'"
In other words, the administration contended that opponents were asking a court to strike down a policy before anyone had been required to comply with it. Talwani disagreed and kept the injunction in place.
The case illustrates a pattern that has defined the administration's election-integrity push: the White House issues a directive, agencies move to implement it, and opponents race to a sympathetic court to freeze the policy before it ever reaches voters. Meanwhile, election officials have pushed the Supreme Court to block the executive order entirely before the midterms.
After Talwani's most recent ruling, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis issued a statement signaling the administration would not back down:
"The entire Trump Administration will continue lawfully enacting the agenda President Trump was elected to enact, which includes the safety and security of American elections."
That language, "lawfully enacting", is pointed. It frames the executive order and the USPS rule as proper exercises of presidential authority, and it casts the court's intervention as the obstacle rather than the guardrail. The administration has also asked the Supreme Court to reinstate mail-in ballot restrictions before the midterms, escalating the fight to the highest court in the country.
USPS published the finalized rule despite the active injunction, a move that keeps the regulation ready to take effect the moment a court clears the path. Whether that happens before voters start receiving ballots is now the central question.
The stakes are not abstract. Mail-in voting expanded dramatically during and after the pandemic, and the systems states use to manage it vary widely. Some states verify voter identity at multiple stages; others rely on signature matching alone. The Trump administration's position is that the Postal Service, the entity physically moving the ballots, should have its own verification layer rather than trusting each state's process without independent confirmation.
Opponents, led by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, have argued in court that the executive order exceeds presidential authority. Judge Talwani agreed, at least provisionally, ruling two sections unconstitutional. But the administration's DOJ brief makes clear it views the challenge as premature, a lawsuit over a rule that had not yet required anyone to do anything.
Concerns about who is casting ballots are not hypothetical. Recent federal cases have underscored the vulnerability of the system: a Chinese national was charged with voter fraud after casting a ballot in the 2024 presidential election, and separately, ICE arrested an Australian national accused of illegal voting in two federal elections.
Several open questions remain. The article does not identify which second section of the executive order Talwani struck down alongside the USPS provision. The exact dates of both the June injunction and the July renewal are not specified. And it remains unclear whether the administration has pursued an appeal beyond the district court level, though linked headlines reference a federal appeals court rejecting a bid to enforce the order.
The timeline is tight. With the rule set for Federal Register publication on Aug. 26 and midterm elections approaching, the window for legal resolution narrows by the week. If the injunction holds, states will send mail-in ballots the same way they always have, without USPS verification, without barcode tracking, and without a centralized participation list.
Voters who want their ballots counted deserve to know that the system delivering them is accountable at every step. The administration built the rule. The Postal Service finalized it. Now a single district judge stands between the policy and the public, and the clock is running.
