A 25-state coalition and the District of Columbia are suing the U.S. Postal Service to block a new mail-ballot integrity rule tied to President Trump's election integrity executive order, with a temporary restraining order request pending weeks before states start mailing midterm ballots.
A coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia is suing the United States Postal Service over a new mail-ballot rule that implements President Donald Trump's election integrity executive order, with the legal fight now landing just weeks before states begin mailing ballots for the 2026 midterms. The lawsuit, filed this week, asks a federal court to strike down the rule and issue a temporary restraining order blocking it from taking effect while the case proceeds. California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington are co-leading the challenge, joined by a long list of Democratic-run states and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
The Postal Service finalized the rule on August 21, three days before the Supreme Court stayed a lower court ruling that had prevented the agency from completing the rulemaking process. The rule requires states to register every voter eligible to vote by mail with USPS and to compile state-specific voter lists, and it gives the agency authority to refuse delivery of ballots to voters who do not appear on those lists.
The rule traces back to the executive order Trump signed on March 31, which seeks to establish a national list of eligible voters and directs the Postal Service to transmit mail ballots only to voters on the list. Under the new procedures, states would be required to hand over voter data and adopt new balloting standards before the mail agency would make deliveries.
The Postal Service also set new design requirements for the envelopes states use to return mail ballots. States would need to meet those standards and secure USPS approval before registering mail voters with the agency, and ballots mailed in envelopes that fail to comply would not be delivered. The agency said it received more than 200,000 responses during the public comment period on the proposed rule.
Supporters of the integrity push note that verification of voter eligibility is hardly a radical concept. Roughly 48 million Americans, about 31 percent of voters, cast ballots by mail in the 2024 election, and the new rule is aimed at making sure those ballots go only to citizens who are actually eligible to receive them. Even Trump himself has voted by mail, casting a mail ballot in Florida's Republican primary this year.
The coalition argues the Postal Service has no authority to regulate elections and that the new requirements could prevent eligible voters from receiving mail-in ballots this November. The states contend the rule violates the Constitution's allocation of election authority, conflicts with the laws that govern the Postal Service, disregards required administrative procedures and runs afoul of the Privacy Act and federal voting-rights protections.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said states run elections under the Constitution, not the federal government and not the postal service. She called the new requirements convoluted and said the courts would block another unconstitutional attempt to interfere with state administration of elections. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the coalition already helped defeat the initial executive order and is now suing again to keep the Postal Service from carrying out what he called an illegal directive.
The practical burden is the states' central complaint. With the general election season weeks away, election officials would have to redesign mail-ballot envelopes, build new data-sharing systems, retrain workers, rewrite guidance and educate the public before the new procedures could even begin. The states argue that even a perfectly executed rollout could still disenfranchise voters through administrative errors in rushed and untested systems.
This is the second round of litigation over the executive order. A federal judge in Boston suspended major portions of the order in June after an earlier multistate challenge, and a federal court in California also blocked the changes. The Trump administration appealed, and on August 24 the Supreme Court stayed the ruling, clearing the way for the Postal Service to move forward with its rulemaking.
The administration has pressed the issue on multiple fronts. The federal government has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for refusing to hand over lists of eligible voters, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The Postal Service rule also requires states to give the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies access to voter lists as a condition of ballot delivery.
The high court's August 24 action did not settle the constitutionality of the new regulation. It only determined that the challenge was premature when Democratic-controlled states persuaded the Boston judge to suspend the order in June. A second ruling from the same judge could again prevent the Postal Service from implementing any procedural changes before this year's midterms.
Time is the biggest variable in the case. The first mail ballots are required to be sent to military and overseas voters from North Carolina on September 4, and New Jersey is scheduled to begin mailing ballots on September 19. At that point, it would be virtually impossible for all states to overhaul their ballot formatting and envelope designs to comply with the new federal standards.
The coalition is seeking a temporary restraining order that would keep the rule from taking effect while the lawsuit winds through the courts. A ruling on that request could come within days, and it will effectively decide whether the new procedures apply to the 2026 midterms at all. State election officials are already preparing for both scenarios, with several saying they will continue processing mail ballots under state law regardless of the outcome.
The case is a defining test of how far the federal government can go in setting the rules for federal elections, and it is heading for a decision at the exact moment voters start receiving ballots. Whatever the lower court decides, the losing side is widely expected to appeal, which means the Supreme Court could once again have the final word on mail voting before November.
A 25-state coalition and the District of Columbia are suing the U.S. Postal Service to block a new mail-ballot integrity rule tied to President Trump's election integrity executive order, with a temporary restraining order request pending weeks before states start mailing midterm ballots.
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