On September 14, 2026, the Supreme Court denied the Trump administration's emergency application to let the Postal Service enforce its new mail-ballot rule in the November midterms. The rule, which carries out Trump's March executive order, would have required election officials to submit mail voters' names and addresses to a USPS portal and use uniquely barcoded envelopes. The order said, “The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court's preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.” Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented; NBC News said the Court appeared divided 7-2.
The Court did not settle whether the rule is lawful. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that “there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority,” but that “applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.” CNBC noted the order only keeps the rule out of November's elections. Alito, dissenting, wrote that some plaintiffs lacked standing, that “Twelve States supported the rule below and asserted that compliance at this time is practicable,” and that the plaintiff states and the courts bear a substantial share of the blame for the rule's timing.
A second court had already acted. Shortly before the ruling, Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, blocked the rule, writing that “No statute grants the Postal Service the power to issue key parts of the Rule” and that “the Federal Government does not point to any record evidence that there will be significant fraud in the upcoming elections.” The government had argued that blocking its fraud deterrence causes irreparable harm even without evidence that significant fraud will occur this year, the Washington Examiner reported. Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin had already begun mailing ballots.
Trump responded on Truth Social: “These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves.” He wrote that “Certain Justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved Democrats,” and called the two dissenters “legends.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Finally, his scheme is dead. Trump: you lost another one.” Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, said, “Utahns can have confidence that the 2026 election will proceed as normal.” (See The Supreme Court Lifts One of Two Injunctions on Trump's Mail Voting Order, Ruling 6-3 That the States Sued Too Soon Rather Than That the Order Is Lawful, Trump Signs an Executive Order Creating Federal Voter Lists and Restricting Mail-In Voting; States Immediately Refuse to Comply and Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump Appointee, Declined in May to Block Trump's Mail-Voting Order, Then Blocked the Postal Service Rule in September.)
Update (September 16, 2026): Trump's full post on the morning of September 15 went further. “Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote, calling it “a big loss for Republicans, and America itself,” which “makes cheating by the Radical Left 'Dumocrats,' on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do.” He wrote that “This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years” and that “It is a Court that will go down as having rendered some of the most destructive, hurtful, and damaging decisions in our Country's history.” He also attacked the Court's tariff and birthright-citizenship rulings, and closed, “It is not easy for me to write this criticism of the United States Supreme Court - it will likely cost me dearly for years to come - but I feel it my obligation and duty, as President, to do so for the America we love!” Trump himself voted by mail in Florida this year, CBS News reported.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the administration would comply with the order but that “President Trump's efforts to make sure that we have free and fair elections are not going to stop just in November or after or thereafter. So I expect you're going to see that work continue.” He said Trump “has every right, and indeed he should communicate his concerns with the Supreme Court whenever he has them.”
The Court's order recorded no vote count; Justices Alito and Thomas noted dissents and Justice Kavanaugh concurred. Alito wrote that “the plaintiff States and the courts bear a substantial share of the blame for the rule's timing,” including his own Court, which he said “spent from late July to the end of August drafting nearly 40 pages of opinions.” On the burden on election officials, he wrote, “I take that problem very seriously, but it is not enough to convince me to deny the application.” Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said, “To be clear: by design, the President has no role in elections, and he cannot on whim direct the Postal Service to exercise authorities it does not have.” CNN reported that all 23 district courts to rule on the merits of the Justice Department's separate demands for state voter files have rejected them.
Update (September 17, 2026): the Postal Service confirmed it has stopped building the system. Postmaster General David Steiner told the Associated Press in an interview at headquarters that work on the computer system at the center of the effort has halted. “There's an injunction so we're not doing anything,” he said. A memo sent to all postal employees on September 16 and obtained by AP said the agency would “not be enforcing any of these new rules in the 2026 federal election,” and told staff that “First and foremost, for Election Mail it is business as usual.”
Steiner said he had planned to launch the portal around September 15, learned of the executive order about a month before it was unveiled, and had read “portions” of the whistleblower report. He declined to take a position on the policy or on the Supreme Court's decision: “I don't get to decide what rules that are put on us that I decide to accept or not accept. I looked at it more from the execution side.” He said he was proud of how fast the work was done: “There's absolutely no doubt that we worked fast.” He denied reports that he might resign, saying, “There's no truth to that. I think I know the motivation behind it. I think it's somebody that would like to see me out of a job.”
The scheme is paused rather than abandoned. Steiner said the Postal Service will keep pushing states toward barcoded envelopes in future cycles through pricing instead of a mandate: “If you use the barcode in the envelope, we'll charge you a lower price. If you don't, we're going to charge you a higher price because it's harder for us to process.”
A note on sourcing: this is a single-outlet report. It rests on an on-the-record, named interview with the accountable official plus an internal memo AP obtained, but no second newsroom has independently confirmed it.