by WorldTribune Staff, June 25, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
An Obama-appointed federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday blocked the United States Postal Service (USPS) plan to not deliver ballots in states that refuse to hand over their voter lists to the federal government.
District Judge Indira Talwani reportedly found that major parts of President Donald Trump’s March 2026 election integrity executive order were “legally void” for exceeding the president’s power and violating the separation of powers by encroaching on states’ authority to administer elections.
“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Talwani wrote.
In siding with Democrat state attorneys general in their lawsuit against the Trump Administration, Talwani’s order also prevents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) from effectively creating a nationwide voter registration list by compiling lists of verified U.S. citizens eligible to vote.
“No law enacted by Congress delegates authority to control mail-in voting to USPS,” Talwani wrote in her decision.
Talwani issued an injunction specifically preventing the Trump Administration from enforcing the provisions in Trump’s order against the 24 jurisdictions (23 states and the District of Columbia) whose attorneys general and governors brought the lawsuit. The list includes most Democrat-led and swing states, including Arizona, California, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The judge’s injunction applies only to this year’s midterm elections.
Talwani granted the Trump Administration’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ legal challenges to the executive order as not yet ripe when it comes to future elections.
In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration is “confident that we will ultimately prevail.”
On Wednesday, Postmaster General David Steiner told a Senate hearing that the USPS would not deliver ballots in states that refuse to give up their voter lists.
During the hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Ranking Member Gary Peters of Michigan asked Steiner whether, under the proposal, the USPS would mail ballots from a state that “refuses” to provide the federal government with the state’s absentee voter list.
“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner said. “All that does, senator, is make sure that we match the ballots that a state believes they’re sending out to what actually gets sent out.”
Part of the proposed rule, which pertains to federal election balloting, would create a process in which states “will notify the Postal Service of the individuals to whom they are mailing a mail-in or absentee ballot, along with the unique barcode applied to the outbound and return ballot mail envelope for such individuals such that the name and barcode of the voter will be included on a Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” according to the text of the proposal.
The states “may thereafter add to or modify the list of enrollees until the last day that ballots may be mailed out to individuals under state law,” the proposal notes, adding that “the Postal Service will provide to each state’s chief election official a final State-Specific Mail-In and Absentee Participation List for each state compiling the names of all enrolled individuals in such state, along with the barcodes associated with such individuals’ mail-in or absentee ballots.”
