SCOTUS Blocks Trump USPS Mail-Ballot Security Rule for Midterms, Citing Timing

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday night refused to lift a nationwide injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s U.S. Postal Service rule on federal mail-in ballots, leaving California’s universal vote-by-mail system, and Nevada’s, untouched less than seven weeks before the November midterms. 

In United States Postal Service v. California, the Court denied the administration’s emergency application for a stay. The unsigned order was blunt: “The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred. He said the Postal Service may well have the power to issue the rule, but not this close to an election.

“In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority,” Kavanaugh wrote, citing 39 U.S.C. §401(2). “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.”

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. Alito called the majority’s decision a mistake. “The Court incorrectly denies the Government’s application for a stay of a universal injunction that bars implementation of a final rule concerning election ballot mail,” he wrote. 

Some of the organizational plaintiffs, he argued, lack standing. The states, he said, are pursuing an ultra vires claim this Court has recently described as a “‘Hail Mary pass’ that ‘rarely succeeds.’” 

Alito also noted that Congress largely exempted Postal Service operations from ordinary Administrative Procedure Act review and that a dozen states told the lower court compliance was practicable now. He blamed the challengers and the courts for much of the delay: California and allied states sued the president’s March directive before a final rule even existed, and earlier injunctions later drew skepticism from the justices themselves. 

“The plaintiff States cannot claim the timing of the rule tilts the equities in their favor when they, and courts hearing their claims, are responsible for so much of the delay,” Alito wrote. He would have granted the stay. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom called Monday “a good day for democracy.” 

“California stood up for democracy and we won,” Newsom said. “Trump’s attacks on democracy these last 20 months have been nothing short of un-American. Finally, fifty days out, and the American people have certainty when it comes to our country’s electoral process: Voting is safe, vote-by-mail is accessible to any and all who need it. And I encourage every Californian to make their voice heard this November.” 

Attorney General Rob Bonta, who co-led a coalition of 24 attorneys general challenging the rule, said the administration had now lost in the district court, the First Circuit, and the Supreme Court. “The stakes in this litigation could not have been higher,” Bonta said. “Voting is the fundamental right from which all other rights flow, and all 50 states allow ballots to be cast by mail in some form. 

In California and several other states, mail voting is the primary way elections are conducted, with many states implementing universal mail balloting during the pandemic. 

Had this rule been allowed to take effect, the consequences would have been catastrophic.” Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber said the legal cloud had lifted.

“The ruling on mail-in ballots has been made. The uncertainty is behind us. Now, let the people vote,” Weber said. “Voters will be able to cast their ballots without uncertainty, without hesitation, and without fear that their voices will be questioned or their ballots rejected.” She added: “Now, we can finally move forward and get back to what we do best: conducting our elections without a dark cloud hanging over us—fairly, openly, for the people, by the people.” 

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco “Cisco” Aguilar, a Democrat seeking reelection, praised the order in nearly the same language he used after a federal judge first blocked the USPS rule on September 4.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for voters across Nevada and the country who rely on voting by mail,” Aguilar said. “This is not a party issue – across party lines and rural and urban communities, mail ballots give voters a way to make their voices heard.” “Despite the President’s efforts to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections, the Supreme Court made it clear the restrictions on mail voting are unlawful and cannot move forward,” he said. “Here in Nevada, we will continue standing up for states’ constitutional authority to administer elections and for the ballot access eligible voters deserve.”

President Donald Trump denounced the ruling Tuesday on Truth Social, calling it “horrible, highly political” and “a big loss for Republicans, and America itself.”

“Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the Court System took forever to give, and then blamed it, in part, on no time left to implement a solution to our totally CORRUPT and out of control Mail-In voting ‘disaster,’ which is a laughing stock all over the World, and where we are the only country that has to endure such a Nation Destroying SCAM,” Trump wrote. 

He said the order “makes cheating by the Radical Left ‘Dumocrats,’ on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do – And now they have an open field to do so!” 

Trump praised Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who dissented, as “legends both.” He turned on the three justices he appointed, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett, along with the rest of the majority.“

These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves, a Court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal,” he wrote. “The Supreme Court has really let our Country down!” 

He tied the mail-ballot loss to other recent defeats, including the Court’s rulings against his tariffs and his birthright-citizenship order.

“The Court’s inability and unwillingness to do the right thing for our Country will go down, in a very negative way, in the annals of History,” Trump wrote. “This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years.” 

“It is not easy for me to write this criticism of the United States Supreme Court – it will likely cost me dearly for years to come – but I feel it my obligation and duty, as President, to do so for the America we love!”

“Ballot Mail for Federal Elections,” grew out of Trump’s March 31 Executive Order 14399 on election integrity. It would have required outbound federal ballot mail to use envelopes with an official Election Mail logo, automation-compatible design, and a unique Intelligent Mail barcode tied to each voter. States would have had to submit envelope designs for USPS review and upload voter information to a Postal Service portal. Noncompliant mailings “will not be accepted and will be returned.”

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts issued the preliminary injunction that remains in place. California counties typically begin mailing ballots in early October. Nevada’s military and overseas ballots were already on a mid-September timetable. Election Day is November 3.

Monday’s order does not decide whether the Postal Service may ever impose tracking, barcoding, and roster-matching standards on federal ballot mail. Kavanaugh all but invited the government to try again on a calendar that is not compressed against Election Day. Alito and Thomas said the Court should have let the rule take effect now, nationwide injunction and all. 

What the Court did decide is narrower and more political: with ballots about to print, the status quo wins. In California and Nevada, that status quo is a ballot in every mailbox, drop boxes on every corner, and counts that drag on for days after the polls close.