Twenty-four Democratic-run states and the District of Columbia are suing the United States Postal Service in the latest legal challenge over the USPS's newly finalized rule governing mail ballots ahead of November's midterm elections. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston handed the Trump administration a win in a case brought by the League of Women Voters over President Donald Trump's executive order to restrict mail-in voting. In her order, Talwani said she was compelled to lift a ruling that prohibited the USPS from carrying out Trump's directives following a decision by the Supreme Court's conservative majority on Monday.
She added that Trump's executive order could unleash chaos before the midterms and described it as "likely unconstitutional." Newsweek has contacted the USPS for comment via email. The Supreme Court handed down a procedural ruling on Monday that lifted a similar injunction Talwani had granted in a separate case, saying she had weighed in before the USPS had issued its final rule governing the delivery of mail ballots. However, the high court has not weighed in on the legality of Trump's executive order, meaning the issue could come before the justices again before November's midterm elections.
Still, it remains unclear if and how the president's order could affect mail-in voting in the midterms, since the first mailed ballots are expected to be sent out next week. The legal fight over how voters can cast their ballots comes with just over two months to go until the midterm elections on November 3. Control of Congress is at stake, and Republicans are fighting to preserve their slim majorities in the House and Senate.
Supporters of the Trump administration's approach argue that stronger safeguards are needed to maintain confidence in elections, raising concerns about voter-roll accuracy, ballot verification procedures and the possibility that ballots could be issued to ineligible voters. However, studies have found instances of fraud to be rare when it comes to mail ballots. A study by the Brookings Institution found about four cases of fraud out of every 10 million mail votes cast across U.S. general elections from 2016 to 2022.
Democratic voters are more likely to cast mail ballots, according to States United Democracy Center. More than one in three estimated Democrats voted by mail in 2024, compared to an estimated one in four Republicans, an analysis by the nonpartisan organization showed. The new lawsuit—brought by the attorneys general of 23 Democratic-controlled states, the governor of Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia—is the first legal challenge filed over Trump's order since Friday, when the USPS released the text of its final rule on mail ballots.
The rule outlined how the USPS would support Trump's executive order, which directed federal agencies to create lists of eligible voters and ordered the USPS to deliver mail ballots only to people on the lists. The rule would require states to follow a uniform envelope style for mail ballots and to give the USPS a list of voters eligible to receive them. Along with D.C., this is the coalition of states that filed the lawsuit: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
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