A federal judge on Wednesday lifted a major hurdle to President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail-in voting, even as Democratic state officials filed a new court challenge with the midterm elections fast approaching. The new round of legal wrangling comes just two days after the Supreme Court handed down a procedural ruling in Trump’s favor, and could mean the issue reaches the high court again ahead of pivotal races for control of Congress. The first mail-in ballots will be sent out next week. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston agreed to lift an order prohibiting the U.S. Postal Service from carrying out Trump’s order for the November election. She wrote that she was “forced” to do so after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled that a similar injunction she granted in a separate case was premature. However, Talwani said the executive order could unleash “chaos” and called it “probably unconstitutional.” The administration can now move forward and implement a Postal Service rule released Friday night. It would require states to follow a uniform envelope style for mail-in ballots and give the Postal Service a list of voters eligible to receive them. A new chapter in high-stakes litigation The new lawsuit, filed by about two dozen democratically controlled states against the United States Postal Service, marked a new phase in high-stakes litigation. It came after the Supreme Court ruled against him in a separate case but did not say Trump’s order was legal. The high court majority found the initial Democratic lawsuit premature, but that was before the Republican administration issued a rule regulating the Postal Service’s delivery of mail-in ballots. Election officials warn it will be impossible to implement before the first wave of mail-in ballots are sent out next week. “Across the country, states are already immersed in preparations for the 2026 elections. Now, at the last minute, the federal government is attempting to meddle in those preparations, potentially threatening the right to vote for countless Americans,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of 25 Democratic attorneys general who filed the lawsuit, said in a statement. “USPS does not have the authority to decide who can and cannot vote by mail.” The Trump administration’s plan faces a third lawsuit originally filed in May in the nation’s capital, although courts there have so far refused to block it. Sign up for the Ground Game newsletter: your guide to the biggest stories in American politics, policy and elections. All of the previous challenges were filed before the administration released its mail-in voting rule Friday night. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Wednesday that the Postal Service proposals were “common-sense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots” and that the administration would continue to work to implement them to increase “the security of our elections.” action. In Boston, Talwani also found that the administration had violated a separate court order it had imposed on the Postal Service in writing the new rule, although it took no action against the government. The League of Women Voters originally filed that lawsuit and on Wednesday also sought a new court order blocking the mail-in voting plan. Voting by mail has long been on Trump’s radar. Trump has long targeted mail-in voting, which he falsely blames for his 2020 election loss and which Democrats use disproportionately as a result of Trump’s convictions. Since returning to power, Trump has tried to claim authority over election rules, saying he believes Republicans should “take over” counting votes in Democratic areas. He issued his first electoral executive order a few months after taking office, attempting to require documentary proof of citizenship to vote, among other changes. He has also been pushing a sweeping election bill that has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Democrats and even some within his own party.
