Washington DC [US], September 7 : US President Donald Trump’s administration on Sunday again asked the Supreme Court to allow the US Postal Service (USPS) plan for mail ballots to take place effective immediately ahead of the midterm elections, CNN reported.
As per the American broadcaster, in its emergency appeal, the Postal Service noted that mail ballots for the November midterms are already being sent in one state, North Carolina, and that other states will soon follow. The USPS asked the high court to quickly allow it to implement its rule, setting up one of the most significant election cases on the court’s quick-turn docket in years.
This comes as the Supreme Court is already considering an emergency appeal filed by the USPS earlier on September 3 that urged the justices to allow the agency to implement the new ballot rule ahead of the November elections.
According to CNN, in that appeal, the USPS asked the Supreme Court to stay a temporary restraining order from US District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts that barred the agency from moving forward for two weeks.
In a significant ruling ahead of the November midterm elections, US District Judge Indira Talwani on Friday (local time) issued a preliminary injunction preventing the U.S. Postal Service from implementing its controversial new mail-in voting rules, CBS reported.
The 49-page decision extends an earlier emergency temporary order issued on August 26, effectively freezing the Trump administration's postal mandates for the duration of the 2026 midterm election cycle.
Judge Talwani ruled that the Postal Service exceeded its constitutional authority by trying to impose administrative requirements on state election programs, reported CBS.
The court stressed that the Constitution assigns election administration to Congress and the states, not to federal agencies. The judge noted that enforcing complex new mandates while ballots are already being sent out would "nearly guarantee significant disenfranchisement" for eligible voters who depend on mail-in voting.
The recent appeal to the top court comes as the Trump administration pushes to give the USPS an unprecedented role in elections.
CNN reported that North Carolina has already begun mailing out ballots. Alabama will begin doing so on Sept. 9. At least five additional states will begin mailing ballots on September 13, according to the Justice Department.
“Once those ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them,” the Justice Department told the Supreme Court in its filing on Sunday. “And while the injunction allows the Postal Service and the states to continue taking steps to ensure that their envelopes satisfy the rule’s requirements, each day the injunction is in place risks sowing confusion and chaos because the injunction makes those preparatory steps voluntary, rather than mandatory.”
The USPS rule would require state and local election officials to upload lists of their mail voters to a portal. It would also require election officials to use special barcodes on the envelopes to ease tracking of that mail. As per CNN news, many election officials have argued that it’s already too late to implement those requirements.