A Federal Appeals Court Clears USPS to Move Forward on Its Ballot-Mail Rule — But Only in Half the Country
President Trump (R) signed an executive order in March directing the U.S. Postal Service to require states to enroll in a federal ballot-verification system before USPS would agree to transmit their mail ballots. USPS published the actual rule in June. Since then it has been tied up in two separate federal lawsuits at once.
On July 17, 2026, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stayed one of those two injunctions, pending appeal — clearing USPS to advance the rule in most of the country. A second, entirely separate injunction from a different judge in a different case is untouched by that ruling and still blocks the rule in 23 states and the District of Columbia.
Those are two distinct cases, not one, and conflating them is the easiest way to get this story wrong. This piece keeps them separate throughout — and flags what USPS still has not done, and has not disclosed, before this rule could actually govern a ballot in the November election.
- 24 jurisdictions — 23 states plus D.C. remain blocked by a separate, untouched June 25 injunction — per Lynnwood Times
- 2 separate federal cases — NAACP v. USPS over a delivery settlement, and California et al. v. Trump over the executive order itself — do not conflate them
- “Under our proposed regulation, no” — Postmaster General David Steiner's answer when asked if USPS would deliver ballots without a state's voter list — per Democracy Docket
- 13 Republican state AGs — led by Alabama's Steve Marshall (R), filed a comment letter backing the rule — per Alabama Political Reporter
- 90 days — maximum length of the Postal Regulatory Commission's advisory-opinion review — not yet formally requested as of July 17, against a Nov. 3 election — per Lynnwood Times
On March 31, 2026, President Trump (R) signed Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile a “State Citizenship List” and separately directs USPS to begin rulemaking requiring barcoded “Official Election Mail” envelopes and state enrollment in a voter-list verification system before the agency will transmit a state’s ballots. The order was published in the Federal Register on April 3, 2026 — the same day 23 states and the District of Columbia sued over it.
USPS published the actual proposed rule, “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections,” on June 2, 2026. It would create a “Mail-In and Absentee Participation List” submitted through a new “Federal Ballot Mail Portal” — requiring states to hand USPS voter names, addresses, and Intelligent Mail barcodes matched to that list before their ballots are enrolled for priority handling. The public comment period closed July 2, 2026.
Two separate federal cases have been moving on parallel tracks ever since, and this is the part of the story most coverage gets tangled up in. California et al. v. Trump, filed by 23 states and D.C. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, challenges Executive Order 14399 itself on constitutional grounds. On June 25, 2026, Judge Indira Talwani ruled key provisions of the order unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement in those 23 states and D.C. — 24 jurisdictions in total.
The second case is a different animal entirely. NAACP v. USPS, filed June 3–4, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before Judge Emmet Sullivan, does not challenge the executive order at all. It alleges USPS’s own proposed rule breaches a 2021 consent settlement that requires the agency to prioritize timely delivery of Election Mail through 2028. Around July 3, 2026, Judge Sullivan sided with NAACP and issued an injunction blocking the rule.
NAACP v. USPS — U.S. District Court, D.C., Judge Emmet Sullivan. Claim: the rule breaches USPS’s 2021 Election Mail settlement. Injunction issued around July 3, 2026 — stayed by the D.C. Circuit on July 17, clearing USPS to proceed except where the Talwani injunction below still applies.
California et al. v. Trump — U.S. District Court, D. Mass., Judge Indira Talwani. Claim: the executive order itself is unconstitutional. Injunction issued June 25, 2026, covering 23 states and D.C. — untouched by the July 17 ruling.
Net effect: USPS can now advance the rule everywhere except the 24 jurisdictions still covered by Judge Talwani’s order.
Before either injunction, Postmaster General David Steiner testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on June 24, 2026, where Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) pressed him on what happens to a ballot if a state hasn’t submitted its voter list.
“Under our proposed regulation, no.”
Postmaster General David Steiner · Senate Homeland Security Committee, June 24, 2026
Asked what USPS would tell a state that hadn’t complied, Steiner was direct: “We would tell the state that we need the manifest.” That answer — USPS declining to deliver ballots absent a state-submitted voter list — is the single fact both sides of this fight keep returning to.
This week every Senate Democrat joined me to insist @USPS abandon its illegal vote-by-mail rule. Yesterday's ruling is clear...
Granite Staters count on getting their mail on time... as Trump's USPS focuses instead on making it hard for people to vote.
State officials split sharply along partisan lines during the comment period. Between July 6 and 8, 2026, 13 Republican attorneys general led by Alabama’s Steve Marshall (R) filed a joint letter backing the rule: “States are the leaders in regulating elections, and yet despite our best efforts to enact policies to deter and detect fraud, voter fraud continues to be a problem.” Washington’s Nick Brown (D) answered from the other side: “The Constitution is clear: states control elections, not the President.” Colorado and roughly two dozen other states, along with Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman (D), separately urged USPS to drop the rule outright. The American Postal Workers Union weighed in too — spokesman Jonathan Smith said plainly: “It is our position that it is not the job of the postal workers to verify voter eligibility.”
Alabama is leading the charge to secure mail-in ballots. Our coalition urged USPS to finalize the rule to strengthen the security for mail-in and absentee ballots in federal elections.
President Trump (R) — signed the executive order directing USPS to build the rule.
Postmaster General David Steiner — a nonpartisan USPS post; testified USPS would withhold ballots absent a state voter list.
Alabama AG Steve Marshall (R) — led 13 Republican AGs backing the rule.
Washington AG Nick Brown (D) — led the opposing argument that states, not USPS or the President, control elections.
Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman (D) — among officials who urged USPS to drop the rule.
Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) — pressed Steiner in committee and organized Senate Democrats against the rule.
On July 17, 2026, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit issued a per curiam ruling staying Judge Sullivan’s injunction pending appeal. The panel found USPS likely to succeed on ripeness grounds and unlikely to have violated the 2021 settlement. That stay applies only to the NAACP v. USPS injunction — it does nothing to Judge Talwani’s June 25 order, which remains fully in force in the 23 states and D.C. it covers. The practical result: USPS can now advance the rule everywhere except those 24 jurisdictions, which amounts to roughly half the country by ruling that’s in effect, half that isn’t.
D.C. Appeals Court Allows USPS to Proceed with Trump's Mail-in Ballot Rule in Half of the Country
President Trump posted on Truth Social the same evening, framing election-security efforts broadly rather than addressing the ruling by name.
Ensuring the integrity of our elections is fundamental to preserving trust in American democracy. Following the 2020 presidential election, concerns about potential irregularities prompted detailed examinations of voting processes, data security, and registration practices across multiple states...
Posted the same evening as the D.C. Circuit ruling; the visible text addresses election integrity broadly and does not name USPS specifically.
The New York Post framed the ruling in its own headline as “a win for election integrity” — that phrase is the outlet’s framing, not a quote from any named official. One more wrinkle sat in the background of the week’s coverage: between July 9 and 14, 2026, Trump removed the remaining sitting commissioners of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, leaving the agency with zero commissioners — which is why no EAC statement exists on this rule at all.
Winning the stay does not make the rule operational. USPS’s own proposal requires it to obtain an advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission before full implementation — a process that can run up to 90 days and, as of July 17, 2026, USPS had not yet formally requested. Measured against the November 3, 2026 general election, that is a tight fit: a 90-day clock started today would run past mid-October, leaving little room for states, county election offices, or USPS itself to adjust before ballots go out.
There is also a gap worth naming plainly: nowhere in USPS’s proposed-rule text, as published in the Federal Register, does the agency disclose what building the Federal Ballot Mail Portal, verifying state-submitted lists, or handling the compliance workload would cost. A federal rule that reshapes how ballots move through the mail in a presidential-cycle election year has, at publication, no public cost or budget-impact figure attached to it — not from USPS, and not from an EAC that currently has no one sitting on it to ask.
USPS can now move forward on a rule that lets it withhold ballots from states that haven’t submitted a voter list — but only in the roughly half of the country not covered by a second, separate injunction a different judge issued three weeks earlier over the underlying executive order. Postmaster General David Steiner has said on the record USPS would tell a noncompliant state it needs the manifest. Thirteen Republican AGs want the rule finalized; a Democratic AG, a Democratic comptroller, and the postal workers’ own union want it dropped. And USPS still hasn’t asked its regulator for the advisory opinion its own rule requires, hasn’t disclosed what any of this costs, and has roughly three and a half months before Election Day to sort it out.
Two to three days after the D.C. Circuit’s stay, RealClearPolitics and The American Spectator ran a piece headlined “Mail-In-Voting: Appeals Court Hands Trump Big Win” — language echoed within hours by RedState, PJ Media, ZeroHedge, and The Gateway Pundit. Worth stating plainly, because it is easy to mistake that wave of coverage for a second court victory: it is not one. Every one of those pieces describes the same July 17, 2026 D.C. Circuit stay of Judge Sullivan’s injunction covered above. No additional court — not the D.C. Circuit, not the First Circuit, not the Supreme Court — has issued any further ruling on this rule since Friday. The Massachusetts case sits exactly where it was: Judge Indira Talwani’s June 25 injunction covering 23 states and D.C. remains in force, on appeal to the First Circuit, undecided as of this writing.
One detail from the panel’s own opinion is worth adding, since it helps explain why Friday’s ruling keeps getting recirculated as decisive: the judges found USPS would suffer irreparable harm without a stay because, for a rule meant to govern one specific Election Day, “there can be no do over” once the election has happened. That reasoning is what’s driving the renewed attention — not a new legal outcome. The most notable actual reaction to surface since Friday came from Bill Essayli, the Trump-appointed First Assistant U.S. Attorney for California’s Central District, who posted on X the next day that the ruling “is a win for election integrity and would have significant implications for states like California that refuse to submit their voter rolls.”
This ruling is a win for election integrity and would have significant implications for states like California that refuse to submit their voter rolls to verify compliance with federal election laws.
Nothing about the practical timeline for the 2026 midterms moved either. USPS still had not asked the Postal Regulatory Commission for the advisory opinion its own rule requires, as of July 20 — the same gap flagged in §05. Postmaster General David Steiner has made no additional on-record statement since his June 24 Senate testimony. The NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the most vocal parties in the underlying litigation, have not issued a public statement responding to the stay itself, as distinct from their statements praising Judge Sullivan’s original injunction three weeks earlier. The headline making the rounds today is real amplification of a real ruling — it is just not a new one. The on-the-ground status for the November election is unchanged from where §04 left it: the rule can advance in roughly half the country and remains blocked in the other half, with no Postal Regulatory Commission review yet requested and no cost estimate yet disclosed.
