(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge who blocked the most controversial aspect of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at restricting mail-in ballots — namely, employing the Postal Service as the primary enforcer of mail-voter eligibility — has now lifted that decision following the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday that legal challenges are premature.
The move means there are no longer legal holds on any aspect of Trump’s March 2026 mail-in ballot executive order and that the administration is free to move forward, for now, with its implementation without caveats.
Trump’s executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to build a federal citizenship list and give it to the states; the Department of Justice to target state officials who give ballots to noncitizens; and the USPS to direct states to abide by certain mail-ballot design and tracking requirements.
Most critically, the order would require states to provide a list of registered eligible voters to USPS for verification and mandate that postal workers only deliver ballots to persons on the list.
Dozens of Democratic state attorney’s general sued the Trump administration over the USPS directive in April, arguing it is unconstitutional since states — not the federal government — have primary authority for administering elections.
A separate lawsuit by voting rights advocates challenged the proposed USPS ballot verification scheme.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the states lacked standing to challenge Trump’s order at this stage since nothing had formally impacted how they will administer elections.
The conservative majority made clear, however, that the decision “does not mean that any measure taken by the government to implement the order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell.”
The Postal Service this week published its finalized plan with respect to the November election, focusing largely on state ballot design and barcode tracking requirements. Notably, it leaves out or waters down the most controversial aspects envisioned by Trump’s order.
At this time, states are not being asked to provide detailed voter eligibility lists to USPS that include personal identifiable information, including citizenship. The USPS also says outright it “will not play any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rolls, or counting ballots.”
The Postal Service, however, will soon proceed with directing states to ensure their mail ballots comport with certain design standards — including a barcode — and to provide voter address information to verify delivery.
Twenty-five states filed a new legal challenge against the Postal Service on Wednesday, alleging it is illegal.
“It displaces state laws adopted pursuant to each State’s constitutional authority to administer elections, erects new USPS functions and ballot mail constraints that are inconsistent with USPS’s governing statutes, flouts USPS’s procedural requirements, violates the Privacy Act, and cannot be reconciled with federal voting rights law,” they wrote in a lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts District Court.
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