Update, Friday evening Sept. 4: Judge Talwani issued a preliminary injunction blocking the USPS midterm mail-ballot rule (replacing the TRO). Read the PI update.

BOSTON — The Trump administration on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, asked the Supreme Court to stay a temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani that blocks mandatory pieces of the U.S. Postal Service’s new “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections” rule — hours after a Boston hearing in which Talwani pressed the Justice Department on whether the system was even ready, the Associated Press (via WALB) reported. North Carolina was scheduled to begin shipping mail ballots Friday, the first full wave ahead of the midterms; some Wisconsin municipalities had already sent earlier.

Solicitor General John Sauer’s emergency application seeks a stay of Talwani’s TRO stopping USPS from enforcing uniform envelope-design approval and a requirement that states upload voter lists to a USPS portal — under which the Postal Service could refuse delivery if states do not comply. The rule was published at 91 Fed. Reg. 54966. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the circuit justice for the First Circuit, set a Sept. 8 response deadline for the plaintiffs, making a decision unlikely before mid-next week at the earliest. The administration has also appealed to the First Circuit.

At the Boston hearing, Talwani told DOJ attorney Michael Velchik she lacked a Postal Service declaration explaining how the program works. “I don’t even have a declaration from the Postal Service: ‘This is how it will work.’ I don’t have it. I have nothing,” she said, later calling the rollout an “experiment.” “As you sit here today, you can’t tell me the government has a program ready to go?” she asked. Velchik said USPS would “fully implement the rule.” The portal appeared still inactive Thursday, and Velchik could not identify a single intervening state that had opted in.

Talwani’s TRO runs about 14 days from roughly Aug. 27; she is considering an extension through Sept. 10. The timing is the point. States that choose to use the federal mails for ballots suddenly face last-minute centralized envelope and addressee rules — plus an experimental portal — weeks before midterms, with ballots already printing. Concentrated federal election administration through the Postal Service is exactly the kind of power grab state election offices say they cannot rebuild around mid-cycle.

The high court late last month said an earlier injunction was premature because the regulations had not yet been published. USPS then published the final rule; plaintiffs refiled. Sauer argues states “cannot choose to use the federal mails to carry out their elections but then insist that their election-related mail is somehow exempt from the Postal Service’s rulemaking authority, conferred by Congress, to regulate envelope design and addressee information.” ACLU Voting Rights Project Director Sophia Lin Lakin countered: “The only emergency here is the one the administration created. The court’s temporary order preserves the voting procedures Americans have relied on for years, and it should stand.” A whistleblower report made public this week warns the requirements could leave millions of ballots unsent, AP reported.

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