Main: President Donald Trump walks from Marine One to board Air Force One at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026 (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein). Right inset: U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, pictured during her nomination hearing on Jan. 8, 2014 (Senate Judiciary Committee).
A Massachusetts federal judge has repeatedly blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing President Donald Trump's mail-in voting executive order ahead of the midterms. Now that the injunction applies nationwide, the DOJ is telling the U.S. Supreme Court it has all it needs to swiftly issue a stay.
"The district court's new order confirms the urgent need for this Court to grant the stay of the permanent injunction and to explain its rationale for doing so," argued U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, Trump's former personal attorney.
"In all events, it is critical that the Court act promptly on the pending stay. Otherwise, the district court's erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government's ability to implement Section 3 of the Executive Order for the federal elections in November, thereby causing irreparable harm to the federal government, the public, and election integrity," the brief went on, referring to U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's nationwide injunction in a separate but related case on Tuesday.
The judge, a Barack Obama appointee, once again sided with the League of Women Voters in holding that Section 3 of Trump's executive order 14399 is an "unconstitutional" directive for the USPS to "refuse to transmit mail ballots for certain voters," threatening the "fundamental right" to vote.
"As discussed in its prior decisions and expanded upon below, the court finds it prudent to review the EO now, where less than 90 days pend before the midterms and the millions of citizens who rely on mail voting require clarity as to how or whether they will vote in November," Talwani said, conscious that some state attorneys general are currently opposing the Trump administration's application for a stay at the Supreme Court.
Those states likewise said the "dangers of altering election rules on the eve of an election" are widespread confusion and, ultimately, the "intolerable risk" of "disenfranchising a substantial number of voters" in the upcoming midterm elections.
While the DOJ claims Talwani's "erroneous" orders have wrongly put Trump's "election integrity" agenda at risk of running out of time, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed her in a 2-1 decision, recognizing that the president "direct[ed] unprecedented levels of involvement by federal officials in how states administer elections."
"[T]he Government has failed to demonstrate any error in the district court's analysis," the appellate majority concluded.
Now the matter rests with the justices.