A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a Trump administration plan that could have allowed the U.S. Postal Service to refuse to carry some New Jersey vote-by-mail ballots this fall, removing a potentially significant threat to the state’s election system less than three months before the midterms.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued a nationwide preliminary injunction preventing the Postal Service from implementing President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring states to participate in a new federal system for determining who is eligible to receive a mail ballot.
The ruling means New Jersey can continue operating its vote-by-mail program under existing state law for the November 3 election without the Postal Service imposing Trump’s new voter-verification requirements.
Under Trump’s order, states would provide lists of eligible voters to the federal government, and the Postal Service would transmit mail-in and absentee ballots only for voters enrolled on those lists. States that failed to participate could face the prospect of the Postal Service refusing to carry their ballots.
That presented a potential collision with New Jersey law, which allows any registered voter to vote by mail and permits voters to remain on a permanent vote-by-mail list for future elections.
New Jersey was already protected by an earlier Talwani ruling in a lawsuit brought by 23 mostly Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia. Tuesday’s decision goes further, barring enforcement nationwide for the November election or any earlier federal election.
“The executive branch has no authority to regulate elections,” Talwani wrote.
The Boston-based judge found that the Constitution assigns responsibility for regulating federal elections to the states and Congress — not the president — and that Congress has not given the Postal Service authority to decide who may receive a mail ballot.
“The EO is presently causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy,” Talwani wrote.
The preliminary injunction prevents the Postal Service from refusing to transmit mail-in or absentee ballots and from implementing regulations required by Trump’s order before the midterms. It does not prohibit the Postal Service from issuing nonbinding guidance on ballot-mail envelopes.
Talwani said protecting the ability of voters to participate in the election outweighed the administration’s interest in putting the order into effect.
“Enfranchisement heavily outweighs the executive’s attempt to unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election regulation,” she wrote.
Timing was a major factor in Talwani’s decision. Election officials across the country are already preparing ballots and mail-voting procedures for an election that is now less than three months away.
“That it is now less than 90 days before the November 3, 2026 midterm elections underscores the critical need for an injunction to prevent Defendants from changing election rules on the eve of the election,” Talwani wrote.
The ruling comes less than two weeks after U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi dismissed a separate Trump administration lawsuit seeking access to New Jersey’s unredacted voter registration records.
The Justice Department had argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1960 entitled it to obtain the state’s complete voter file, but Quraishi rejected that argument and dismissed the case on July 29.
The administration’s push for New Jersey voter data is part of a broader effort to obtain voter rolls from states ahead of the midterm elections.