Judge Finds the Postal Service Violated Her Injunction by Finalizing the Mail-Ballot Rule - but Imposes No Penalty

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled Tuesday that the administration violated her nationwide preliminary injunction when the Postal Service finalized its mail-ballot rule. In a five-page order she wrote that "Defendants cannot contend that they misunderstood the scope of the court's order," and found that "Defendants violated the preliminary injunction in this case." The injunction bars the administration both from directing USPS to reject non-conforming ballot mail before the 2026 midterms and from "initiating or completing rulemaking" to implement the new criteria. The government had argued that publishing the rule was permissible because its text says USPS will not implement it while the injunction stands.

A finding that an agency breached a court order goes to whether injunctions constrain executive action in practice, not only on paper. It also arrives ten weeks before the midterms, in the same dispute the Supreme Court touched on Monday.

Talwani declined to grant any of the remedies the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts had requested, allowing publication to proceed Wednesday while the rule remains blocked from taking effect. She did not address the government's argument that the Supreme Court's Monday order undercuts her injunction, nor decide whether to lift it.