League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump

The Constitution gives Congress and the states – not the President – the power to regulate elections. Despite this, President Trump’s March 31, 2026 Executive Order seeks to impose a sweeping new federal regime over mail-in and absentee voting nationwide.

The Order directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of citizens from federal databases – including Social Security Administration records and immigration data – and transmit those lists to states before every federal election. It also directs the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to develop new requirements for federal ballot mail, including a system under which states would provide USPS with information about voters receiving mail ballots and USPS could refuse to deliver ballots that did not comply with the new requirements.

The ACLU, ACLU of Massachusetts, and co-counsel sued to block the Order on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, the League of Women Voters, Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO), U.S. Vote Foundation, OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates (OCA), and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

The district court initially blocked implementation of key provisions of the Executive Order. But on August 24, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed that relief, concluding that the challenge to the President’s directive was premature because USPS had not yet taken final action implementing it.

USPS then issued a final rule imposing new requirements on mail ballots for federal elections. Among other things, the rule required state and local election officials to use specifically designed ballot envelopes, obtain USPS approval of those envelopes, and upload information about individual mail voters to a new federal portal. Ballot mail that did not comply with the new requirements could be rejected and returned to election officials.

We returned to court to challenge the Final Rule. The district court first temporarily blocked its mandatory requirements for the November 2026 election and, on September 4, issued a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the Rule for that election.

The federal government again asked the Supreme Court to intervene, this time seeking to stay the preliminary injunction and allow the Final Rule to take effect.

Update: On September 14, 2026, the Supreme Court denied the government’s request to block the district court’s preliminary injunction. The Court concluded that the government was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the preliminary injunction and that the equitable factors did not favor a stay. As a result, the preliminary injunction remains in place, and USPS cannot enforce the challenged requirements for the 2026 elections.