U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols on Sunday ordered the U.S. Postal Service not to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail ballots, issuing a preliminary injunction in a case challenging the rule and pausing changes ahead of the 2026 midterms. The order is the second federal freeze on parts of the policy and was reported by multiple outlets.
Judge Nichols, a Trump appointee, issued the order from his court in Washington, D.C., saying plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of harm if the Postal Service began enforcing the restrictions, according to reporting by the Associated Press. NBC News and The New York Times also published accounts of the ruling late Sunday.
The injunction comes as the dispute over the executive order is already before the U.S. Supreme Court; earlier this summer the high court temporarily allowed parts of the order to move forward while litigation proceeds, court records and analysis show. The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to lift blocks imposed by lower courts and to allow the Postal Service to adopt new mail-handling steps the administration says are needed to guard against fraud, reporting by The Hill and AP shows.
Election-law experts and officials warned that implementing the rule close to the midterms could disrupt ballot delivery and processing. Local election officials told news outlets they were not ready to apply the administration’s new requirements on short notice, and some states have already argued in court that the order intrudes on state authority to run federal elections.
Legal defenders of the order have appealed earlier blocks, and an appellate panel recently declined to lift a preliminary injunction against the policy, a development covered in recent reporting. The sequence of district-court injunctions, appellate rulings and emergency filings at the Supreme Court has left the order’s status unsettled as election officials plan for November.
Why the case matters: the executive order would direct the Postal Service to verify ballot packets against voter lists and impose new delivery and verification steps for ballots used in federal elections, according to filings and news reports cited by SCOTUSBlog and AP. Opponents argue those steps would delay or invalidate otherwise valid ballots; supporters say they tighten security.
Sources
- Associated Press — reported Judge Carl J. Nichols’s preliminary injunction and details about the court’s reasoning.
- NBC News — covered the late-Sunday order and placed it in the context of other federal rulings.
- The New York Times — reported on the injunction and the litigation’s implications for election officials.
- SCOTUSBlog — provided background on the Supreme Court’s earlier emergency orders and court filings.
Related coverage: see Trump administration appeals court block on USPS mail voting rule and reporting on broader implementation concerns in Postal voting blocked as Trump’s mail ballot rule faces Supreme Court challenge for more context.
