SG D. JOHN SAUER / USPS
"the Postal Service's final rule imposes only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements for federal-election ballots sent via U.S. Mail"
"Despite this court's injunction, on Friday, August 21, 2026, at or around 9:00 p.m., the USPS issued a final rule implementing Section 3 of the Executive Order." — — Judge Indira Talwani, preliminary injunction, September 4, 2026
Talwani had barred USPS from implementing Section 3 of Trump's March election order or "otherwise initiating or completing rulemaking" under it. At about 9:00 p.m. on Friday, August 21, USPS issued the final rule anyway, effective that day. On Monday afternoon the Supreme Court stayed her injunction, holding the states' injury too speculative because "the USPS's publication of the final rule was hypothetical," and that federal courts "review final rules, not proposed rules." Her September 4 order records the part nobody covered: the Supreme Court's order "made no reference to the USPS's publication of the final rule that prior Friday night," and the Court found harm to the government by "assuming that USPS had complied" — reasoning that the injunction stopped the Postal Service "from so much as initiating a rulemaking" it had finished seventy-two hours before. Sauer now tells the justices the rule imposes "only modest" requirements; an election-administration expert credited by the court says none of them can feasibly be implemented before November 3, when roughly 10,000 jurisdictions would have to redesign ballots with budgets set and training done. Every ruling got a story. The calendar got none.