{"id":78,"date":"2026-08-26T20:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/?p=78"},"modified":"2026-08-26T20:13:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T20:13:00","slug":"federal-judge-lifts-all-blocks-on-trump-mail-in-ballots-executive-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge lifts all blocks on Trump mail-in ballots executive order"},"content":{"rendered":"
Yellow mail-in ballots sit in a U.S Postal Service truck while being delivered Oct. 8, 2020, in Phoenix, Arizona. (John Moore\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge who\u00a0blocked<\/span>\u00a0the most controversial aspect of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at restricting mail-in ballots \u2014 namely, employing the Postal Service as the primary enforcer of mail-voter eligibility \u2014 has now lifted that decision following the\u00a0Supreme Court’s ruling<\/span>\u00a0Monday that legal challenges are premature.<\/p>\n

The move means there are no longer legal holds on any aspect of Trump’s March 2026 mail-in ballot executive order and that the administration is free to move forward, for now, with its implementation without caveats.<\/p>\n

Trump’s executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to build a federal citizenship list and give it to the states; the Department of Justice to target state officials who give ballots to noncitizens; and the USPS to direct states to abide by certain mail-ballot design and tracking requirements.<\/p>\n

Most critically, the order would require states to provide a list of registered eligible voters to USPS for verification and mandate that postal workers only deliver ballots to persons on the list.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dozens of Democratic\u00a0state attorney’s general sued the Trump administration over the USPS directive in April, arguing it\u00a0is unconstitutional\u00a0since states \u2014 not the federal government \u2014 have primary authority for administering elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A separate lawsuit by voting rights advocates challenged the proposed USPS ballot verification scheme.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the states lacked standing to challenge Trump’s order at this stage since nothing had formally impacted how they will administer elections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The conservative majority made clear, however, that the decision “does not mean that any measure taken by the government to implement the order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell.”<\/p>\n

The Postal Service\u00a0this week\u00a0published its\u00a0finalized\u00a0plan with respect to the November election,\u00a0focusing largely on state ballot design and barcode tracking requirements. Notably, it leaves out\u00a0or\u00a0waters down\u00a0the most controversial aspects envisioned by Trump’s order.<\/p>\n

At this time, states are not being asked to provide\u00a0detailed\u00a0voter eligibility lists to USPS that\u00a0include personal identifiable information, including citizenship. The USPS also says outright it “will not play any role in determining voter eligibility, maintaining voter rolls, or counting\u00a0ballots.”<\/p>\n

The Postal Service, however, will soon proceed with directing states to ensure their mail\u00a0ballots\u00a0comport with certain design standards \u2014 including a barcode \u2014 and to provide voter address information to verify delivery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Twenty-five states filed a new legal challenge against the Postal Service on Wednesday, alleging it is illegal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It displaces state laws adopted pursuant to each State\u2019s constitutional authority to administer elections, erects new USPS functions and ballot mail constraints that are inconsistent with USPS\u2019s governing statutes, flouts USPS\u2019s procedural requirements, violates the Privacy Act, and cannot be reconciled with federal voting rights law,” they wrote in a lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts District Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yellow mail-in ballots sit in a U.S Postal Service truck while being delivered Oct. 8, 2020, in Phoenix, Arizona. (John Moore\/Getty Images) (WASHINGTON) — A federal judge who\u00a0blocked\u00a0the most controversial aspect of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at restricting mail-in ballots \u2014 namely, employing the Postal Service as the primary enforcer of mail-voter eligibility […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}