Federal judge says USPS 'feigned' compliance with stay on mail-in ballot rule

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani fumed on Tuesday fumed over the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) finalizing a rule on mail-in ballots, despite her stay on doing so.

USPS issued the final rule last week and argued it did not violate Talwani's initial order because it made clear that the provision would not apply to the November midterms.

"These arguments ignore the court’s explicit directive not to 'initiat[e] or complet[e]' rulemaking," she wrote. "And Defendants cannot contend that they misunderstood the scope of the court’s order. To the contrary, Defendants feigned complete compliance with the California v. Trump injunction in their July 27, 2026 request to the Supreme Court for an emergency stay in that case."

While she did not formally impose any penalty, she did formally declare that the USPS violated the order.

Talwani's opinion follows the Supreme Court lifting a separate stay on President Donald Trump's mail-in ballot executive order from a D.C. court, but Talwani's remains in place.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.