A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has blocked the U.S. Postal Service from moving forward with proposed mail-ballot procedures that could have stopped ballots from being delivered unless states complied with new federal requirements.
The July 1 order from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan granted the NAACP’s motion to enforce a 2021 settlement agreement with USPS. That agreement required the Postal Service to prioritize the monitoring and timely delivery of election mail, including mail-in ballots, for national election cycles through 2028.
The ruling comes less than five months before the November midterm elections and marks another court defeat for President Donald Trump’s effort to tighten federal control over mail voting. Reuters reported that the proposed USPS rule grew out of Trump’s March executive order, which directed federal agencies to reshape how mail ballots are handled and which voters could receive them.
At the center of the case is a basic but far-reaching question: whether the Postal Service may refuse to carry ballots if state or local election officials do not meet new federal demands.
The proposed rule would have required states to provide USPS with information about voters receiving mail or absentee ballots, along with barcode data tied to ballot envelopes. USPS would then use those lists and barcodes to verify outbound ballot mail before accepting it for delivery. If a state did not certify a list or comply with the new envelope and barcode standards, the Postal Service would not transmit outbound federal ballot mail to that state’s voters.
For voting-rights groups, that would have given USPS a new role in election administration traditionally handled by state and local officials. It also would have created a new point of failure in a process where delays, list errors, vendor mistakes, envelope problems, or state resistance could prevent voters from receiving ballots in the first place.
Sullivan agreed that the proposed procedures conflicted with the settlement that resolved the NAACP’s 2020 lawsuit against USPS. That lawsuit was filed after postal delays and operational changes raised fears that mail ballots would not be delivered in time during the 2020 election. The 2021 settlement required USPS to issue national guidance documents for each national election cycle through 2028 and to maintain policies focused on timely election-mail delivery.
In his opinion, Sullivan rejected USPS’s argument that the settlement left it broad discretion to define its election-mail practices. The court found that the agency could not claim to prioritize timely ballot delivery while also adopting a policy under which some ballots would not be accepted for mailing at all.
The decision is especially significant because the challenged rule was not just about returned ballots after voters had filled them out. It applied to outbound ballot mail, meaning ballots sent from election officials to voters. If those ballots were never delivered, affected voters could lose the chance to vote by mail before they even received a ballot.
The NAACP, the Legal Defense Fund, and Public Citizen Litigation Group argued that the Postal Service’s plan would create confusion during an active election year and place an added burden on voters who rely on mail voting. That includes disabled voters, older voters, rural voters, voters without reliable transportation, people with work or caregiving responsibilities, and voters who face intimidation or unequal access at polling places.
The civil-rights groups also warned that the changes could disproportionately harm Black voters. Anthony Ashton, senior associate general counsel at the NAACP, said after the ruling that mail voting can help reduce voter intimidation and Election Day misconduct, and that tying ballot access to new administrative demands would have created unlawful barriers.
The court’s order lands in the middle of a larger fight over Trump’s attempt to use executive power to change federal election procedures. On June 25, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston blocked implementation of the executive order ahead of the midterms, ruling that Trump had exceeded his authority over elections administered by states and local governments.
That earlier ruling dealt with the executive order itself. Sullivan’s ruling focused on a different legal foundation: the Postal Service’s existing settlement with the NAACP. Because the 2021 agreement remains enforceable through the court, Sullivan found that the NAACP could ask him to stop USPS from implementing procedures that would violate it.
The combined effect is a temporary but important barrier against an election-mail overhaul less than a year before voters choose control of Congress. The Trump administration has argued that the measures are needed to protect election integrity, while Trump has continued to claim, without evidence, that mail voting is prone to widespread fraud. Courts have now repeatedly found that the administration’s approach runs into constitutional, statutory, or settlement-based limits.
USPS and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment after the ruling.
The order does not end every legal fight over the administration’s election agenda. The government could appeal, and related cases over Trump’s executive order are still moving through federal courts. But for now, the ruling blocks USPS from imposing the challenged procedures and keeps the 2021 settlement in force for the coming national election cycle.
For voters, the immediate effect is straightforward: the Postal Service may not implement a rule that would have allowed it to reject ballot mail based on new list, barcode, and certification requirements. For election officials, it removes a late-stage federal mandate that could have forced states and localities to rebuild ballot-mail systems under legal uncertainty. And for civil-rights advocates, it preserves a legal commitment won after the 2020 election-mail crisis.
Allison Zieve, director of Public Citizen Litigation Group, said the ruling stopped a plan that would have put millions of mail voters at risk: “USPS’s plan was unwise, unlawful, and a threat to the millions of voters who rely on mailed ballots to participate in our democracy.”
COMMENTS