CNN reported that a federal judge has issued a ruling blocking the United States Postal Service from implementing its plan related to President Donald Trump's executive order on the delivery of mail-in ballots, finding that the proposal violates a prior settlement reached in a 2020 lawsuit against the agency.
Trump had directed the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to states that provide it with lists of voters eligible to cast mail-in ballots and that meet other requirements of their respective mail voting programmes.
Although a judge in Boston had previously halted enforcement of the order in 22 states that challenged it in court, the new ruling by US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, DC, freezes the directives nationwide.
CNN noted that if courts were to allow Trump's order, issued in March 2026, to remain in effect, it would grant the federal government an unprecedented role in the administration of elections and could place more voter data in the hands of Trump administration officials who are investigating what they describe as alleged election fraud.
Judge Sullivan's order stems from a lawsuit filed by the NAACP in 2020 over policy changes that at the time slowed mail delivery as elections approached during the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2021 settlement required the agency to publish guidance documents detailing how it would prioritise the monitoring and timely delivery of election mail, and also granted the court supervisory authority over the agency's procedures in that regard.
Judge Sullivan stated in his opinion that the regulations proposed by the Postal Service to implement Trump's executive order would result in ballots not being delivered to voters if those ballots did not comply with the requirements of the presidential order.
Sullivan noted that the proposed rules violate a core provision of the prior agreement, stressing that the Postal Service cannot publish documents reflecting policies that prioritise election mail delivery while its new policy simultaneously calls for rejecting non-compliant shipments, withholding ballots from some voters, or refusing to send them in any state that declines or fails to submit approved voter lists.
In a related context, CNN explained that Trump's order also requires that mail-in ballot envelopes carry individualised barcodes for each voter to enable automated tracking — a practice considered a best standard in election administration, though many jurisdictions face significant challenges in implementing it due to the high financial cost involved.
The order also directs the Department of Homeland Security to draw on federal databases to compile lists of citizens of voting age in each state, raising widespread concerns about the potential use of such lists for broad and inequitable voter roll purges.
Commenting on the ruling, NAACP President Derrick Johnson described the decision as yet another major blow to Donald Trump's attempts to manipulate elections, affirming that the will of the people ultimately prevails. CNN noted that it had contacted the US Postal Service for an official comment on the new ruling.