BOSTON — U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the U.S. Postal Service from enforcing its “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections” rule for the November midterms, replacing her earlier temporary restraining order as North Carolina began mailing ballots, NBC News, the Guardian, and the Associated Press reported.

Talwani found the Final Rule likely unlawful and unconstitutional and that immediate implementation less than seventy days before the election threatens disenfranchisement of millions who vote by mail, while the record includes “no evidence relating to fraudulent mail voting to support the rushed implementation,” she wrote, according to NBC. “Based on the record presently before the court, Plaintiff States face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections,” she added. The Guardian quoted her finding that states required by law to mail millions of ballots on a prescribed timeframe “are unable to pivot this late in the election cycle, nearly guaranteeing significant disenfranchisement.”

She rejected the Justice Department’s request to stay her order pending appeal. The injunction’s scope is midterms-only: Talwani said the Final Rule “imposes no irreparable harm as to later elections and judicial challenges may be addressed in the normal course,” NBC reported. States may still voluntarily opt into the new USPS portal and design-approval system; AP and the Guardian reported that, so far, no state has announced it will do so.

North Carolina began sending mail ballots Friday under state law. Attorney General Jeff Jackson warned Thursday that a Supreme Court win for the administration would “throw our election into chaos,” NBC reported. The administration had already asked the Supreme Court to lift Talwani’s TRO; Friday’s preliminary injunction supersedes that temporary order and may moot or reshape that emergency appeal, depending how DOJ frames the next filing. For Thursday’s SCOTUS-stay ask and hearing pressure, see our earlier Politics piece.

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