The Elections Order

One Postal Service rule, three tracks, and a mid-course reset at the Supreme Court · Active

Executive Order 14399, Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg. 17125 (Mar. 31, 2026), directs federal agencies to build citizenship lists and, in Section 3, orders the U.S. Postal Service to write a rule so that the post office will carry a mail-in or absentee ballot only to voters a state has pre-enrolled on a participation list. USPS issued that final rule, 'Ballot Mail for Federal Elections,' 91 Fed. Reg. 54,966, on August 26, 2026. Three sets of plaintiffs challenged the order, and for a time they split: the states won a final judgment in Massachusetts, a coalition of voting-rights organizations won a separate nationwide injunction, and the national Democratic Party committees lost in Washington on ripeness. On August 24, 2026 the Supreme Court reset the picture. In Trump v. California it stayed the Massachusetts injunction on ripeness grounds, holding that a challenge to the order was premature before USPS issued a final rule, without reaching whether the order is lawful. Two days later USPS published the final rule anyway, and the litigation pivoted to the rule itself: plaintiffs supplemented their complaints, and on August 27 Judge Talwani granted a new fourteen-day temporary restraining order staying most of the rule for elections on or before November 3, 2026. The fight now is over the issued rule, not the order in the abstract.

THE STATES (D. MASS. TO 1ST CIR. TO SCOTUS) THE PARTY COMMITTEES (D.D.C. TO D.C. CIR.) THE VOTING-RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS (D. MASS.) NAACP V. USPS (2020 SETTLEMENT)

The States

State of California v. Trump

1:26-cv-11581 · D. Mass. · 2026-06-25

Judge Indira Talwani, 37 pages. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia challenged Sections 2, 3 and 5 of the order as ultra vires and unconstitutional, invoking the separation of powers, the Elections and Electors Clauses, and the Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering doctrine. The court granted the states summary judgment and entered final judgment on July 7, 2026. The states' injury was money and time already spent: they had begun diverting elections staff and rewriting procedures to comply before the November election.

Closed → Full case page

Memorandum & Order, Judge Talwani (37 pp., June 25, 2026) Docket on CourtListener

The States

State of California v. Trump (1st Cir.)

26-1774 and 26-1779 · 1st Cir. · 2026-07-25

Judges Gelpi, Rikelman and Dunlap DENIED the government's motion to stay the judgment pending appeal, which left the ruling against the order in force at the circuit stage. The panel noted that the government did not defend the legality of the order in seeking the stay, did not contest the district court's assessment of the summary judgment record, and did not dispute that the states had begun spending time and diverting resources. The government also conceded that any citizenship list it compiled would necessarily be incomplete. This was a stay ruling, and the merits appeal is still pending. Judge Dunlap would have stayed part of the judgment. The Supreme Court later granted a stay on ripeness grounds on August 24, 2026, so the judgment is stayed while the case proceeds.

Active → Full case page

Order denying stay pending appeal (July 25, 2026)

The States

Trump v. California (Supreme Court)

26A124 · U.S. · U.S. Supreme Court · 2026-07-27

Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an Application for a Stay of the Injunction and Request for Administrative Stay on July 27, 2026, asking the Court to switch the Massachusetts ruling off while the case proceeds. It was not an appeal and not a petition for certiorari. Justice Jackson called for a response, which the states filed on August 3, and the parties filed supplemental briefing on August 12. On August 24, 2026 the Court granted the stay. It ruled narrowly, on ripeness: it held that a challenge brought before USPS issued a final rule was premature, and it did not decide whether the order is lawful. The practical effect was to switch off the Massachusetts injunction, and it prompted the district court to revisit its own rulings two days later once USPS published the final rule.

Closed → Full case page

Application for a stay and request for administrative stay (July 27, 2026) States' consolidated opposition to the stay application (Aug. 3, 2026)

The Party Committees

DSCC v. Trump

1:26-cv-01114 · D.D.C. · 2026-05-28

Judge Carl J. Nichols denied a preliminary injunction on May 28, 2026, after a hearing on May 14. The plaintiffs are the national Democratic Party committees, who sued the day after the order issued and moved for an injunction a week later, before any agency had acted. The NAACP, LULAC, Common Cause and Black Voters Matter filed parallel challenges that were consolidated into this case on April 10, 2026, so the ripeness ruling covers all of them.

Closed → Full case page

Docket on CourtListener

The Party Committees

DSCC v. Trump (D.C. Cir.)

26-5193 · D.C. Cir. · 2026-07-28

Judges Millett, Wilkins and Katsas AFFIRMED, unpublished, on ripeness. In Section III.B the panel identified four types of injury the committees claimed, privacy, voting rights, political-competitor interests and organizational resource diversion, and held that each flows not from the order itself but from predicted future agency action. The court leaned on Trump v. New York, 141 S. Ct. 530 (2020). It was explicit that it was not blessing the order: the plaintiffs, it wrote, have identified a number of serious questions concerning the lawfulness of proposed actions if implemented on the threshold of the upcoming federal election. It also distinguished these plaintiffs from the states charged with administering elections.

Closed → Full case page

Judgment affirming denial of preliminary injunction (8 pp., July 28, 2026) Docket on CourtListener

The Voting-Rights Organizations

League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump

1:26-cv-11549 · D. Mass. · 2026-08-11

Judge Indira Talwani granted a nationwide preliminary injunction on August 11, 2026, barring the Postal Service and its officers from implementing or enforcing Section 3 of Executive Order 14399 for the November 3, 2026 election, and from completing the Section 3 rulemaking. The plaintiffs are eight voting-rights organizations, led by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts. Intervenor states appealed the injunction to the First Circuit (No. 26-1944). This injunction did not survive the Supreme Court's August 24 ripeness ruling: on August 26, 2026, Judge Talwani granted the government's motion to reconsider and vacated the August 11 injunction, holding that the organizations were not likely to prevail on ripeness without amending their complaint to reflect that USPS had now issued a final rule. The organizations amended the same day and the fight moved to the rule, tracked in the next stop.

Closed → Full case page

Memorandum & Order granting preliminary injunction, Judge Talwani (Aug. 11, 2026) Docket on CourtListener

The Voting-Rights Organizations

The fourteen-day TRO against the final rule (LWV-MA and California v. USPS)

1:26-cv-11549 and 1:26-cv-13917 · D. Mass. · 2026-08-27

After the Supreme Court's August 24 ripeness ruling and USPS's publication of the final rule on August 26, the litigation reset around the issued rule. The League of Women Voters organizations amended their complaint, and a coalition of states led by California filed a new suit directly against the Postal Service (State of California v. U.S. Postal Service, 1:26-cv-13917). On August 27, 2026 Judge Talwani granted the plaintiffs' renewed emergency motions and entered a fourteen-day temporary restraining order under Rule 65(b), staying enforcement of most of the final rule, its envelope standards, portal-registration and voter-enrollment provisions, for elections on or before November 3, 2026, and ordering the government to notify all Postal Service personnel within 24 hours under penalty of contempt. She wrote that the Postal Service's interest in correcting an unsubstantiated problem through likely unconstitutional means is dwarfed by the risk of pervasive disenfranchisement of citizens who need mail ballots to vote. The plaintiffs' motions for preliminary injunctions remain under advisement. In the parallel Washington cases, the Democratic Party committees have also supplemented their complaints and renewed their motion for a preliminary injunction now that the rule has issued, and the government has placed Judge Talwani's TRO before Judge Nichols by notice.

Active → Full case page

LWV-MA docket on CourtListener State of California v. U.S. Postal Service docket on CourtListener

NAACP v. USPS (2020 settlement)

NAACP v. U.S. Postal Service (settlement enforcement)

1:20-cv-02295 · D.D.C. · 2026-07-01

A separate and older vehicle that runs alongside the Executive Order 14399 challenges. In 2020 the NAACP sued the Postal Service over ballot-delivery delays and settled in 2021, with USPS agreeing to prioritize timely delivery of election mail. When the administration moved to limit mail-ballot delivery to voters on state-approved lists, the NAACP asked Judge Emmet Sullivan to enforce that settlement. On July 1, 2026 the court agreed, finding the plan breached the settlement, and blocked it. The Postal Service appealed, and the D.C. Circuit stayed the enforcement order on July 17, 2026 (No. 26-5257). This settlement injunction is the restraint the Massachusetts court leaned on earlier in the litigation before it issued its own injunction.

On Appeal

Docket on CourtListener