The U.S. Postal Service has stopped all work on the computer system it was building to verify mail-in ballots under President Trump's election-security order — Postmaster General David Steiner confirmed Thursday that with a federal injunction in place, “we’re not doing anything.”
Why it matters: Trump’s boldest attempt to standardize and verify mail ballots nationwide before the Nov. 3 midterms is now effectively dead for this election cycle, after the Supreme Court on Sept. 14 declined to lift a lower-court injunction blocking the rule USPS had finalized to carry out his March executive order. Washington Examiner reports Steiner won’t say whether he agrees with the courts or the order — only that the injunction means the project is frozen.
Driving the news:
Steiner told the Associated Press Thursday that USPS is doing nothing to advance the ballot-verification system while the injunction stands, declining to weigh in on the litigation or the executive order itself. Washington Examiner
The Supreme Court’s Monday order, in a majority opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh — one of Trump’s own appointees — left the injunction in place, finding the government “unlikely to succeed on the merits” and citing insufficient time left for election officials to comply before the midterms. Fox News notes Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The blocked rule, which USPS finalized on Aug. 22, would have directed states to submit voter rolls to USPS, mark ballot envelopes with unique barcodes for high-speed scanning, and give the agency 60 days’ notice ahead of Nov. 3 if they intended to submit citizenship data.
Trump signed the underlying order, "Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections," back in March — months before USPS finalized the rule meant to implement it.
By the numbers:
March 2026 — when Trump signed the executive order that started the process.
Aug. 22, 2026 — when USPS finalized its 95-page implementing rule.
Sept. 14, 2026 — when the Supreme Court declined to lift the injunction blocking it, over 2 dissents (Alito, Thomas).
60 days — the advance-notice window states would have needed to give USPS before Nov. 3 if submitting citizenship data.
Nov. 3, 2026 — Election Day, now arriving without the new verification system in place.
What they’re saying: Trump didn’t hold back. On Truth Social Sept. 15, he called it “another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the Court System took forever to give,” and said the three of his own appointees who joined the majority “are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court; they are merely a shell of their original selves,” while calling dissenters Thomas and Alito “legends.” Townhall reports
The other side: Democrats and voting-rights advocates cast the ruling as a clear win. New York Attorney General Letitia James said “today, the Supreme Court protected one of our most fundamental, inalienable rights,” and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Trump’s plan “obviously unconstitutional,” declaring “his scheme is dead.” per Fox News. In dissent, Alito argued some plaintiffs lacked standing to sue and that USPS has broad authority over its own mail-handling rules, warning the government would suffer “irreparable harm” if the rule stayed blocked past the midterms.
What’s next:
The underlying case continues in lower court, and the injunction stays in force while that plays out — meaning no new mail-ballot verification requirements will be in effect for Nov. 3.
Trump’s public break with Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh — whom he criticized alongside this ruling over past disputes on tariffs and birthright citizenship — suggests he isn’t done pushing the issue, even though it can’t be resolved before this cycle’s voting. Townhall
The bottom line: Trump’s plan to remake how mail ballots are verified nationwide won’t be in place for a single ballot cast this November — and his public attack on three of his own Supreme Court picks suggests the fight, even if lost for this cycle, isn’t over.
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