In a classic example of judicial overreach timed to protect the Democrat mail-in voting machine, Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has ordered the Trump administration to scramble and defend the U.S. Postal Service’s new Federal Ballot Mail rules by 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.
In a Sunday order, Talwani directed the administration to defend the U.S. Postal Service’s new federal ballot-mail regulations by 8 a.m. Tuesday.
That deadline is nearly 16 hours earlier than what the plaintiffs themselves requested.
The left-wing organizations challenging the regulations had asked that the Trump administration be given until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, August 25, to file its opposition, according to their emergency motion.
Talwani instead moved the deadline up to 8 a.m. and declared that USPS had “created the emergency.”
If the Trump administration says it needs until Thursday to respond, Talwani said she will temporarily block formal publication of the regulations while the court considers the emergency motion.
The rule is scheduled to be formally published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, August 26.
Talwani has not yet ruled that USPS violated her previous injunction. Sunday’s order merely establishes an extraordinarily accelerated briefing schedule on the plaintiffs’ motion.
The emergency fight erupted after the Postal Service transmitted its final ballot-mail rule for publication on Friday.
The plaintiffs, including the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Legal Defense Fund, and other left-wing advocacy organizations, accused USPS of “flouting” Talwani’s August 11 preliminary injunction.
They are asking Talwani to declare that the final rule has no force or effect for any election held on or before November 3, prohibit USPS from taking additional preparatory steps, and force the agency to file weekly compliance reports.
The new regulations took effect on August 21. USPS explained that delaying the effective date could prevent the agency from implementing the safeguards in time for the November midterm elections if the courts eventually lift the existing injunctions.
However, the Postal Service’s final rule explicitly acknowledges Talwani’s injunction and states that USPS will not implement the regulations for the 2026 election unless the government first obtains relief from the courts.
“If the government obtains timely relief from the injunctions,” the agency wrote, implementation could begin immediately and give election officials as much time as possible to comply.
In other words, USPS finalized the system but agreed not to activate it for the November election while the injunctions remain in effect.
The new regulations require ballot-mail envelopes to include the official Election Mail logo, meet automation standards, and carry unique Intelligent Mail barcodes.
State election officials would also be required to submit information through the Federal Ballot Mail Portal, including:
- The name of the person receiving a mail-in or absentee ballot
- The voter’s address
- The unique barcode printed on the outbound ballot envelope
- The unique barcode printed on the return ballot envelope
- The state of the originating election office
USPS employees would review outbound ballot mail before accepting it. Mailings that fail to satisfy the standards would be returned to the authorized election official for correction.
The verification provisions apply to outbound ballots sent by election officials. The final rule specifies that the same verification section does not apply to completed ballots returned by individual voters.
Apparently, requiring election officials to provide basic identifying information and uniquely track ballots through the mail is now considered such a grave “emergency” that Trump administration attorneys must prepare a federal court response before breakfast Tuesday.
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, Talwani issued a nationwide preliminary injunction on August 11 preventing USPS from implementing the relevant section of Trump’s election-integrity executive order for the November election.
Talwani claimed that the executive branch lacks authority to regulate elections and argued that the administration’s safeguards could create “confusion” and “chaos.”
The Gateway Pundit also reported that a First Circuit panel refused to pause Talwani’s earlier, narrower injunction covering 23 Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C.
However, Trump-appointed Judge Joshua Dunlap rejected part of the majority’s reasoning and concluded that the states’ alleged injuries involving federal citizenship information were “speculative and hypothetical.”
In a separate case, the Trump administration scored a significant victory before the D.C. Circuit.
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the appeals court stayed an order issued by Judge Emmet Sullivan in litigation involving the NAACP and a settlement left over from the chaotic 2020 election.
The D.C. Circuit found USPS had made a strong showing that it was likely to succeed and could suffer irreparable harm if prevented from finalizing the regulations before the midterms.
That separate appellate victory did not eliminate Talwani’s injunction.
Now the same Obama judge who blocked the safeguards is demanding that the Trump administration defend the finalized regulations nearly 16 hours earlier than even the plaintiffs requested, while threatening to halt publication if government lawyers ask for more time.
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