The Supreme Court on Monday declined to lift an injunction blocking President Trump’s attempt to use the U.S. Postal Service to regulate mailed ballots in this year’s election, dealing a significant blow to the administration’s effort to impose new mail voting rules.
The court issued a brief order saying the administration was unlikely to prevail on the merits, and therefore the lower court’s preliminary injunction blocking the rule will remain in effect while litigation continues.
Some states have already begun sending out mail ballots, and that process can now proceed normally under the existing rules.
Mr. Trump had ordered the Postal Service to obtain from states the lists of all voters to whom they intended to send mail ballots. The states would then have to send out those ballots in envelopes approved by the Postal Service, with bar codes so postal officials could identify and track the ballots.
The Postal Service said it would refuse to deliver ballots that did not comply.
A federal district judge in Massachusetts said the Postal Service rushed its efforts, cutting corners and leaving insufficient time for states to comply before the election.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, said usurping states’ control of elections was “likely unconstitutional.”
Under her order, no state can be forced to submit its voter list to the feds, nor can the postal service refuse delivery.
The justices said Judge Talwani’s ruling will remain in effect for now.
“The government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the district court’s preliminary injunction,” the justices said in the unsigned order.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joined the majority but wrote separately to say there was a “fair prospect” that the administration’s order would ultimately be upheld on the merits.
“But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections,” he wrote.
Dissenting were Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who said they would have allowed Mr. Trump to proceed.
Justice Alito said the states were at least partly responsible for the late timing of the regulation implementing the plans, given their lawsuits that hindered the administration’s progress.
“It is also not clear that the Postal Service created a new class of nonmailable matter, let alone that it is specifically prohibited from doing so,” he wrote.
Mr. Trump’s opposition to mail balloting has grown since the 2020 presidential election, in which he lost to Democrat Joseph R. Biden.
His administration argues that mail ballots are more susceptible to fraud — though Mr. Trump himself has voted by mail.
Judge Talwani said the president’s team never presented evidence of that in court. She called it an “unsubstantiated problem.”
Monday’s ruling is a significant victory for Democratic-led states and the League of Women Voters, which led the legal challenges to the Postal Service rules.
“Today is a good day for democracy, the rule of law, and the American people looking to exercise their Constitutional right to vote,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, which led the Democratic states in their lawsuit.
“The postal service exists to deliver Americans’ mail — not to rewrite election rules, demand voters’ personal information, or decide which ballots make it through the system,” said Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters.
In addition to Judge Talwani, a second district court ruled against Mr. Trump late Sunday.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee to the federal court in Washington, said it is up to Congress, not the president, to set such rules for the Postal Service.
“Nothing in the Postal Reorganization Act authorizes the Postal Service to impose new election procedures on state election officials, to create a data collection system for mail-in and absentee voters, or to refuse the transmission of lawful mail because it fails to meet these data collection requirements,” Judge Nichols wrote.
Judge Nichols said the Postal Service may have the authority to specify the types of envelopes to be used, but that authority does not extend to the new registration list Mr. Trump envisions.
That case was not before the justices.
The Postal Service processed nearly 55 million mail ballots in the 2022 midterm elections.
Government attorneys have compared the Postal Service’s ballot rules to restrictions on mailing cremated remains or replica explosives, which are allowed but regulated.
Both district courts rejected that reasoning.
In Mr. Trump’s original vision, the Postal Service rules were supposed to be coupled with a separate system from the Department of Homeland Security, which would vet states’ registration lists and flag noncitizens.
That part of the plan has not been finalized and is also facing its own court challenges.
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