A federal judge on Thursday reissued a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump's executive order on mail-in voting, halting its enforcement for at least 14 days just over a week before the first mail ballots are set to be sent for the midterm elections.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued the order, which comes after Democrats and voting rights groups refiled their lawsuits. The Supreme Court had previously allowed the administration to move forward, not by ruling on the legality of Trump's order, but by finding that Talwani had acted too soon in her initial injunction.
The administration subsequently issued a formal rule for how states must prepare and submit mail ballots for U.S. Postal Service acceptance. The Postal Service has stated it will not accept outbound mail ballots if states do not submit required recipient information through its portal and meet the rule’s envelope and barcode requirements.
"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 in her ruling.
Democrats and voting rights groups argue that the order and the subsequent Postal Service rule are unconstitutional, asserting that election rules fall under the authority of states and, in some cases, Congress, not the president or the Postal Service. New York Attorney General Letitia James, among two dozen Democratic attorneys general who filed one of the lawsuits, called the rule "a clear attempt by the federal government to interfere in elections it has no power to control."
The case could significantly impact the November midterms, as approximately one-third of Americans vote by mail. Election officials have argued that there is insufficient time to adapt their systems to comply with the new directives.
Trump's first executive order, issued last year, was blocked on similar grounds. That order sought to change election procedures by requiring additional physical documentation for voter registration, such as a U.S. passport or a REAL ID, or a government-issued photo ID with proof of citizenship. Trump has been a vocal critic of mail-in voting, a method he himself has used. Studies, including a 2025 report by the Brookings Institution, have indicated that mail-in voting fraud is rare, with recorded cases in about four out of every 10 million mail ballots cast between 2016 and 2022.