FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump attends an event to sign executive orders related to birthright citizenship and the polysilicon industry, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 6, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
The Trump administration suffered a major setback in its attempt to block mail-in voting with a federal judge ruling against it.
On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump's order forcing the U.S. Postal Service to reject certain ballots. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani from Massachusetts found the order unconstitutional because it came less than 90 days before the midterms and described the Trump order as an "unprecedented directive."
Talwani granted a preliminary injunction against the executive order, which would bar the USPS from transmitting ballots to voters whose names don't appear on state-submitted lists. She found that the administration never mounted a defense of the order itself.
"Throughout the multiple actions before district courts, courts of appeal, and the Supreme Court of the United States, the federal government has declined to defend the constitutionality of the EO's directives," Talwani wrote in her ruling.
She also bluntly rejected the idea that the president can touch elections at all, writing, "The executive branch has no authority to regulate elections."
Talwani found no factual basis for the order's premise and noted that the Department of Justice had offered no evidence tying mail-in voting to fraud.
"The record is devoid of any declarations or other proffered evidence to suggest that mail-in voting has resulted in voting by non-citizens," she wrote.
The sincerity of the Trump administration's stated rationale was also called into question. Talwani pointed out that the administration refused to issue a rule for either later elections or the 27 states not already covered by a separate injunction.
"The sincerity of these arguments is belied by the Defendants' choice to neither issue a Final Rule that applies only after the November 3, 2026, election, nor to issue a Final Rule that applies in the twenty-seven States that are not subject to the pending injunction," Talwani wrote, warning of the stakes for voters caught in the confusion.
Trump's executive order, Talwani wrote, was "threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy."