Trump-Appointed District Judge Blocks Trump’s Post Office Mail Voting EO

A second judge blocks Trump’s unconstitutional Executive Order. Trump’s Voter Suppression Attempt Explained Before diving into the ruling, let’s recap the magnitude of Trump’s effort to steal the election. Just Security explains the Mail Ballots Case Before turning to the Solicitor General’s arguments about the alleged harms to the Government, it’s important to add a few words about the reply brief’s failure to address two discrete but significant things concerning the USPS’ promised “portal” and the USPS’ assessment of outbound ballots—two features that increase the risks of vast disenfranchisement and election chaos. As I explained in my earlier piece, the USPS Rule would require state and local election officials, before they send out any ballots to voters, to upload the name and address of each person entitled to receive a mail ballot, and two Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMbs) “unique” to that person, to an online USPS “portal.” See Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) § 24.4.2, 91 Fed. Reg. at 54991. Yet there is no such portal. On Thursday, Sept. 3, the USPS informed the district court that it “anticipated” having the portal up and ready to use “sometime” the next week, which has now come and gone. The Solicitor General filed his reply brief on Thursday, Sept. 10, just before the end of the week. One would naturally have expected the brief to inform the Court about when the portal will be operational. The brief, however, is conspicuously silent on that question. The second feature in question involves what happens when a state or local election office submits mailings with ballots to USPS for delivery to voters. The USPS Rule would prohibit Postal Service personnel from delivering an outbound ballot to a voter until, inter alia, the USPS confirms that election officials had previously properly “enrolled” that person on the USPS portal, id. §§ 24.5.1, 24.5.2, and that the envelope complies with every one of the new preconditions the USPS Rule would impose (which I describe in my earlier piece), including a perfect match with the voter-specific information and barcodes pre-listed on the “portal.” So, for example, USPS would be required to decline delivery of a properly addressed ballot if the sender did not include the recipient’s name and related information on the USPS portal before the mailing, or if USPS has not yet confirmed that the information is on the portal, or if one of the barcodes on the portal for some reason doesn’t match the barcode on the outgoing envelope. The Government’s reply brief conspicuously says nothing to rebut or to qualify the plaintiffs’ description about how the USPS system would work. Therefore, it would certainly be appropriate for the Court to presume—contrary to the Solicitor General’s previous representation—that the USPS will not “deliver[] as before” “all” outbound federal-election ballot mail that meets the Rule’s requirements. Rather, it would be fair to presume, as the organizational plaintiffs write, that, under the USPS Rule, “[i]f a single envelope barcode fails to scan for any reason, USPS must reject all ballots submitted in the same mailing, even when that means refusing to deliver thousands or millions of Rule-compliant ballots in the same mailing.” There is much more in the report for interested parties. Magnitude of the Executive Order Blocked Again I am pleased to report that DC District Judge Carl J. Nichols blocked Trump’s attempt to steal the election. President Donald Trump appointed Carl J. Nichols as a United States district judge for the District of Columbia. Court Ruling Here’s the Court Ruling Less than three weeks ago, the United States Postal Service adopted a Final Rule requiring that all absentee and mail-in ballots for federal elections—including for the elections occurring in less than sixty days—be transmitted only in envelopes satisfying new design requirements and be transmitted only to voters who are verified by the Postal Service to have been enrolled in a newly created “Federal Ballot Mail Portal.” As the Government concedes, the Postal Service could issue (and enforce) the Rule only if Congress gave it the authority to do so, but here no statute grants the Postal Service the power to issue key parts of the Rule. Plaintiffs have therefore demonstrated that they are likely to succeed on their claim that the issuance of the Rule was ultra vires, and the record otherwise weighs in favor of preliminary injunctive relief. Accordingly, and for the reasons discussed in more detail below, Plaintiffs’ Renewed Motions for Preliminary Injunction against the Rule are granted. Blocked Twice Currently two injunctions block the USPS Final Rule on mail-in balloting. - U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani (D. Mass.) preliminary injunction of Sept. 4, 2026 (upheld by First Circuit Sept. 10), barring enforcement of key mandatory requirements for the Nov. 2026 election. - U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols (D.D.C.) preliminary injunction of Sept. 13, 2026, blocking the entire Rule as ultra vires due to lack of statutory authority. Reflections on Cheaters Poll on Mail-In Voting Understanding the Threat Getting to the Point The issue isn’t whether mail-in ballots are good or bad. The issue is whether the President implements a rule, overriding the Constitutional perogative of the States to run their own elections, after voting has started, that prejudices one side of the vote. I get accused of all sorts of idiocies on posts like this. But I support the rule of law. I was against Biden’s attempts to circumvent the Supreme Court on student loans. And I have been on the right side of numerous unconstitutional efforts by Trump on tariffs, Birthright Citizenship, and now this. I expect the Supreme Court to weigh in and kill the whole damn thing, not just most of it. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Related Posts February 20, 2026: Supreme Court Strikes Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs In 6-3 Vote (I Told You So) Forgive me for bragging, but I got every justice correct. June 30, 2026: Trump Loses Birthright Citizenship Case 6-3, Barrett and Kavanaugh in Majority This was easy but I did get Gorsuch wrong. [Note see addendum on Gorsuch]. … Somehow, Gorsuch tries to justify the Executive Order while poking a big hole in his own dissent. An important development in the ongoing legal dispute over the USPS mail-ballot rule. Regardless of political affiliation, the central question appears to be whether the Postal Service had sufficient statutory authority to impose these requirements and how the rule could affect election administration. Having multiple courts examine the issue should provide useful clarity on the limits of executive and administrative authority before the November elections.