A federal judge has again temporarily blocked parts of President Donald Trump’s mail voting order, just days after the Supreme Court allowed the administration to move forward with the policy.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a 14-day temporary restraining order Thursday. The ruling blocks enforcement of parts of a new U.S. Postal Service rule implementing Trump’s March executive order ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The restrictions involve new requirements for states using the Postal Service to send mail ballots. They include standards for ballot envelopes and requirements for states to provide voter information through a federal USPS portal. The Postal Service could refuse to accept outbound ballots from states that fail to meet the new standards.
Talwani said election officials do not have enough time to redesign ballots, update their systems, train workers, and comply with the new requirements before voting begins.
“Plaintiff states have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms,” Talwani wrote.
The judge also found that voters could face a “significant risk of disenfranchisement” if states cannot comply before Election Day. She concluded that the potential harm to voters outweighed the government’s interest in putting the rule into effect immediately.
The decision comes only days after the Supreme Court lifted an earlier injunction against the administration. In a 6-3 decision, the justices allowed the government to proceed while making clear that they were not deciding whether Trump’s order itself was lawful.
That Supreme Court ruling focused largely on timing. The majority found that the earlier challenge came before the Postal Service had finalized the rules needed to carry out the president’s directive. The lower court therefore acted prematurely by blocking a policy that had not yet been fully implemented.
The legal dispute changed after USPS finalized its regulation this week. Twenty-four states then refiled their challenge, giving Talwani a new basis to consider whether the finalized requirements could take effect.
Democratic-led states and voting rights groups argue that the administration is exceeding its constitutional authority by imposing federal requirements on how states conduct elections. USPS maintains that its rule does not decide who is eligible to vote and that states continue to control voter eligibility and access to mail voting.
The timing could prove important because some states are expected to begin sending mail ballots in early September. Nearly one-third of Americans vote by mail, according to the Fox News report, and election officials have argued that changing procedures so close to the election would be difficult.
The temporary order is scheduled to remain in place for two weeks. A hearing in the case is set for Sept. 3, while an expected appeal could send the dispute back to the Supreme Court before the midterms.