Donald Trump’s attempt to impose new federal restrictions on mail-in voting just hit another legal roadblock.
For the second time, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to give the U.S. Postal Service sweeping new power over how states handle mail ballots — this time ruling that the USPS likely went beyond the authority Congress gave it.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, issued a preliminary injunction late Sunday that bars the Postal Service from implementing key parts of the new rule for the 2026 midterm elections and prevents states from voluntarily working on it.
And the timing could hardly be more significant.
The Supreme Court is already considering the Trump administration’s request to lift a separate injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts. The high court could rule at any time.
The new USPS rule would require states using mail voting to submit voter information to a federal portal and comply with detailed federal requirements for ballot envelopes, including specific barcode standards and advance USPS approval.
Under the rule, ballots that failed to meet those requirements could be rejected by the Postal Service.
Nichols was not persuaded that Congress had given the USPS that kind of authority.
He wrote that the rule exceeded “any conception of the outer bounds” of the Postal Service’s statutory authority and called the government’s arguments to the contrary “unpersuasive.”
In other words, according to Nichols, the Postal Service can regulate the mail.
That doesn’t mean it can simply take over major parts of how states administer elections.
Nichols also warned that allowing states to begin voluntarily complying with the rule while its legality is being litigated could actually make things worse.
Doing so, he wrote, could “create even more confusion and misunderstanding (and thus delays and mistakes).”
That is particularly concerning with the midterms already approaching and mail ballots beginning to go out in some states.
The administration had argued that the new requirements were necessary to protect election security.
Nichols wasn’t convinced by that argument either.
The government compared the mail-ballot restrictions to existing USPS rules governing things such as cremated remains and replica explosives — essentially arguing that the Postal Service already has authority to impose special requirements on sensitive categories of mail.
But Nichols said the comparison didn’t work.
Those rules, he explained, govern how particular items are packaged, shipped and tracked through the postal system.
The mail-ballot rule goes much further, requiring states to maintain voter information through a federal portal and requiring ballots to pass a new regulatory screening process.
Those are fundamentally different functions, Nichols concluded.
The case was brought by the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Governors Association, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
The Democratic groups had urged Nichols to move quickly, arguing that the first mail ballots of the 2026 election were already reaching voters.
Nichols agreed that the timing created a serious problem.
He found that the plaintiffs had shown an increased risk that a significant number of absentee and mail ballots could ultimately go uncounted if the rule were allowed to take effect.
And once an election is over, there’s no easy way to fix that.
“The harm of untransmitted ballots—both to voters and candidates—is irreversible,” Nichols wrote, because “once the election occurs, there can be no do-over and no redress.”
The administration also argued that blocking the rule could undermine election security.
But Nichols said the government had failed to provide evidence showing that allowing the existing mail-voting system to continue would result in significant fraud during the upcoming elections.
“There is no indication in the record before the Court that preliminarily enjoining the Ballot Mail Rule would actually harm those interests,” he wrote.
Instead, Nichols concluded that the potential harm to election security was outweighed by the risk that legitimate mail voters could be disenfranchised.
That leaves Trump’s mail-voting push facing another major obstacle in federal court.
And now there are two judges — including one appointed by Trump himself — who have blocked the administration’s effort to put the new USPS requirements into effect for the midterms.
The next move belongs to the Supreme Court.
