An emergency Supreme Court filing on Thursday asked to revive Trump’s mail-ballot restrictions before North Carolina begins statewide ballot mailings on Friday.
The push came after Judge Indira Talwani questioned whether the Postal Service can run the new system at all, saying the government had provided no clear explanation of how the ballot-tracking portal would work.
Under the rule, states must upload voter lists and use approved envelope formats or the Postal Service could refuse delivery; the portal was still inactive this week, and no state had publicly opted in.
Talwani is weighing whether to extend a 14-day block through Sept. 10 as Democrats, voting-rights groups and election officials argue the president lacks authority to set election rules and the changes risk disenfranchising voters.
How will the untested USPS barcode system impact the timely delivery of millions of mail-in ballots this November?
Could a single barcode error truly derail the entire mail-in voting process for an entire state?
2026 Mail-In Ballot Showdown: Executive Power, Supreme Court, and the Fate of 47 Million Voters
Overview
After Congress blocked the president’s voting reforms, the Trump administration issued a March 2026 executive order restricting mail-in voting. Democratic officials from 23 states and D.C. sued, but the Supreme Court ruled their lawsuits were premature. Once the USPS published its final rule, opponents quickly refiled, leading a federal judge to block key provisions. Meanwhile, USPS rushed to build a new ballot portal, enforcing a strict policy where a single barcode error could reject thousands of ballots, risking widespread disenfranchisement. Operational changes, like slower mail processing and centralized postmarking, further threaten timely ballot delivery as the midterms approach.