A federal appeals court on Thursday left in place a preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting the handling of mail ballots. The three-judge panel declined to suspend the lower-court order while the Supreme Court considers a related request in the same dispute.
The directive would require states to pre-clear ballot-envelope designs with the federal government and submit voter lists through an online portal. The Postal Service said it would not deliver ballots from states that failed to satisfy those conditions, according to Associated Press reporting on the court case.
Election officials said compliance was not feasible because the portal was not active and the first mail ballots were already being distributed in Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin. The ruling preserves current postal handling for now; it does not finally resolve the merits of the president’s authority or every provision challenged in court.
States administer elections under state and federal law, while the Postal Service operates a national delivery network whose rules can affect all jurisdictions. Courts evaluating emergency election requests consider legal likelihood, practical harm and the disruption caused by changing rules close to voting. A preliminary injunction is temporary and can be modified or reversed as appellate courts review the record and underlying constitutional claims.
The injunction was issued by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, and the appellate panel’s refusal to lift it keeps that lower-court protection in force during emergency review.
At the edition deadline, the Supreme Court had not issued its decision, and the appeals ruling did not settle the final legality of the executive order. The next documented developments will be the Supreme Court’s response to the administration’s emergency request and state and Postal Service guidance as additional mail ballots enter the system.