Voters planning to cast mail ballots this November can keep using their state’s existing system after a Sept. 14 Supreme Court order blocked a new U.S. Postal Service rule for federal ballot mail through the midterms.
The new rule — which voting rights advocates say would have kept otherwise valid ballots from being delivered nationwide — would have required every state and local jurisdiction to use USPS-approved ballot envelopes; upload the name, address and barcode of each mail voter to a new federal portal; and match that data exactly on each envelope. Ballots failing any of those checks would not have been delivered.
The USPS issued the rule in August to implement Section 3 of President Trump’s March 31 executive order on “election integrity.”
While the block is not final and litigation continues, the unsigned 7-2 Supreme Court order denies the federal government’s request to lift a Massachusetts federal district court’s preliminary injunction against the rule.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred separately, writing that election officials did not have enough time to reasonably implement the rule before the midterms.
“The bottom line for the November elections is simple: the new USPS restrictions are blocked. USPS cannot refuse to deliver mail ballots, and mail voting remains safe and reliable to use,” said Ethan Herenstein, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, at a Sept. 22 briefing on the mail-in ballot ruling, hosted by American Community Media and Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Nearly one-third of Americans voted by mail in the 2024 general election, representing more than 48 million voters. Eight states and Washington, D.C. allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail.
From executive order to Supreme Court
A coalition led by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts — and represented by civil rights organizations including the ACLU, Brennan Center for Justice, NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice — had sued President Trump in the district court to block USPS from implementing his executive order.
The lawsuit made two arguments: that the Constitution gives states, subject to Congress, the power to run federal elections so the president has no authority over election administration, and that by law USPS must deliver valid election mail unless Congress authorizes an exception.
On Aug. 11, the district court blocked the executive order’s mail ballot provisions. But less than two weeks later, on Aug. 24, the Supreme Court ruled in a separate suit brought by 23 states led by California that the order could not yet be challenged, because it only started the rulemaking process.
The Postal Service had already issued its final rule three days earlier, however, so the coalition amended its complaint to target those new USPS requirements directly.
“If there wasn’t a perfect match, if a single barcode failed to scan properly, if an envelope was not designed just right, the Postal Service refused to deliver that ballot,” said Herenstein. “With the midterm elections around the corner, the Postal Service was literally unable to implement this new unprecedented program in time.”
“To take just one example,” he continued, “the portal through which states were supposed to upload their voters’ information was not yet operational at the time that the Postal Service announced their new rule; so we asked the district court to immediately block the rule.”
The district court — finding that it was “plausibly likely and imminent” the rule would disenfranchise eligible voters — issued a preliminary injunction Sept. 4 blocking USPS from enforcing the rule for the midterms. The federal government then asked the Supreme Court to lift that injunction; this request was denied Sept. 14.
That order “won’t be the final word,” said Herenstein. “We’re going to continue to seek a permanent injunction. But given the Supreme Court’s order and its conclusion that the Postal Service likely lacks authority to issue this regulation, we remain confident that we will prevail.”
An ‘impossible’ rule
“Weeks before a national election, the Postal Service tried to make itself the gatekeeper of every ballot in the country,” said John Cusick, assistant counsel at Legal Defense Fund. “The rule landed less than 70 days before Election Day.”
“Most of” the more than 10,000 election jurisdictions in the U.S. now asked to overhaul their mail voting systems “had already designed, ordered and printed their mail ballot envelopes,” he added.
At a Sept. 3 hearing, a Justice Department lawyer conceded to a federal judge the portal did not exist in working form, while a USPS official filed a declaration that it wasn’t yet ready to operate.
The American Postal Workers Union has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court saying postal workers lacked training and guidance to implement the rule, while an anonymous federal whistleblower has warned the untested system could lead to “catastrophic failure” if implemented before the midterms.
“The term that was frequently used — whether you talk to community organizations, election officials from all states, county and state — was ‘impossible,’ over and over and over again,” said Cusick. “The only thing this rule was guaranteed to stop was lawful votes … When the people building the system say it’s going to fail, believe them.”
The order “is a victory for voters and for election officials,” said Justin Lam, counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, calling the order “a rejection of the administration’s coordinated attempts to undermine election security and confidence in our elections.”
Voting ‘without fear’
“You should make a plan to vote, and you should vote early if you can,” — either in person, using a secure drop box or by mail, because “nobody can lawfully prevent your mail ballot from getting to you,” Lam said.
Niyati Shah, senior director of litigation at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said mail voting is particularly crucial for elderly people, people with disabilities, rural residents, students away from home and people with language-access needs.
Roughly half of Asian American voters cast mail ballots in the 2024 general elections, compared to one-third of all Americans nationally.
Mail voting can be an electoral lifeline for voters in mixed-status families, who can cast a ballot “on your own terms, in your own time,” said Shah.
“There is a lot of confusion and fear, and that is one of the goals of this administration,” she continued. “They want to create that sense of confusion and fear. And it’s important to not give in to that, because then they win.”
Voters are encouraged to confirm their registration at their current address, check their state’s rules, request and return mail ballots early, track them online if possible and have a backup voting plan if a ballot doesn’t arrive.
Nonpartisan Election Protection hotlines offer voter assistance in English at 866-OUR-VOTE, in Spanish at 888-VE-Y-VOTA, in Asian languages at 888-API-VOTE and in Arabic at 844-YALLA-US.
“Mail voting has been in this country since the Civil War,” said Shah. “Almost every state has some form of mail and absentee voting, so use it to the extent it is available in your state, without fear, for this election.”
