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🇴🇲 Oman /Elections & Politics

US judge blocks Trump-backed USPS mail-voting restrictions for 2026 midterms

From Times of Oman · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources In the courts
  • US District Judge Indira Talwani issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Postal Service from enforcing new mail-voting rules during the 2026 midterm election cycle.
  • The judge said the Postal Service exceeded its constitutional authority and warned that implementing the rules while ballots were being sent could disenfranchise voters.
  • The rules would have required redesigned ballot envelopes, a central tracking database and rejection of non-compliant ballot mail, while the Justice Department sought urgent Supreme Court intervention.

A federal judge has blocked the US Postal Service from enforcing new mail-voting rules backed by President Donald Trump, freezing the measures for the 2026 midterm election cycle.

US District Judge Indira Talwani’s 49-page ruling on Friday extended an emergency order issued on August 26. She found that the Postal Service had exceeded its constitutional authority by imposing administrative requirements on state election programs. Election administration, she said, belongs to Congress and the states rather than federal agencies.

nearly guarantee significant disenfranchisement

· Indira TalwaniThe judge warned that enforcing the new requirements while ballots were being sent could deprive eligible mail-in voters of their rights.

Talwani warned that applying complex new rules while ballots were already being mailed would “nearly guarantee significant disenfranchisement” for voters who rely on mail-in voting. Local election officials were already handling voter registration, early voting and ballot processing, leaving little practical time to comply.

Unauthorised by the Elections Clause, the Final Rule clashes with Congress's statutory scheme, and is unconstitutional where it intrudes not only on Congress's Elections Clause powers but also that power left to the States

· Indira TalwaniTalwani explained why she found the Postal Service rule exceeded federal authority.

The disputed regulations followed an executive order signed by Trump in March. They would have required every mail-in ballot envelope to carry a unique, trackable barcode, even though most states had already printed millions of standard envelopes. A second provision would have required election offices to upload voter names, addresses and barcode information to a central USPS database for “Mail-In and Absentee Participation Lists.”

An internal whistleblower described the proposed system as “untested” and “rushed,” while voting rights groups warned that the verification rules could cause entire batches of valid votes to be rejected and stranded. Postal workers would have inspected ballot mail and returned packages that failed to meet the new requirements.

untested

· Internal whistleblowerThe whistleblower used the term to describe the proposed USPS voter-tracking system in warnings to Congress.

The ruling came as states began sending ballots. North Carolina mailed ballots to military and overseas voters on Friday, and several Wisconsin municipalities had already dispatched mail ballots. Justice Department lawyers sought urgent Supreme Court intervention on Thursday, bypassing standard appellate procedures in anticipation of the injunction.

rushed

· Internal whistleblowerThe whistleblower warned Congress about the speed and readiness of the proposed tracking system.
About this summary

Originally published by Times of Oman in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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