Second U.S. judge freezes Trump's mail-ballot rule as the Supreme Court waits

U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols in Washington ordered the Postal Service late Sunday not to carry out President Donald Trump's August rule on mail ballots. The order is the second freeze on the same directive. Judge Indira Talwani in Boston had already blocked the rule for the midterms. The Supreme Court is considering the administration's appeal of her decision.

The August 21 rule grew out of a March executive order. It told USPS to move ballots only for states that upload voter lists, obtain envelope-design approval and print unique intelligent mail barcodes. States that refuse those steps would see ballots stranded. Talwani wrote in August that most plaintiff states had already ordered their envelopes and that some state laws require ballots to go out within days.

Nichols, appointed in the first Trump term, used a narrower sentence. Plaintiffs have demonstrated that, absent an injunction, there is an increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections. He did not decide the constitutional merits. He decided the risk of counting fewer valid ballots before November.

The Supreme Court's posture is the reason two district judges now sit on the same file. The justices had told Talwani earlier that her first intervention came before USPS had finalised a rule. Once the agency published the August 21 text, she issued a new hold. The administration appealed. Nichols's Sunday order adds a second district-court barrier in the capital, covering a different set of plaintiffs while the justices decide how far a president may go in rewriting mail practice from the White House.

Mail ballots are not a fringe channel. Dozens of states use them as the default or as a large share of the midterm vote. Changing envelope rules 70 days out collides with printers' queues and with state statutes that set when clerks must mail. That collision is why election officials in Democratic-led states sued. Voting-rights groups joined them.

Trump has argued that mail voting is sloppy and that states should certify lists if they want the Postal Service to carry their ballots. The Postal Service is a federal entity. Elections are run by states. The legal fight is about which of those two facts governs a paper envelope.

A nationwide freeze by Nichols, stacked on Talwani's order, means clerks can keep printing the envelopes they have. If the Supreme Court later sides with the administration, those envelopes may still fail a barcode test. That is the chaos both judges said they wanted to avoid before Election Day.

The midterms are the clock. Every day the justices wait is a day more ballots leave mailrooms under the old design. Every day the rule is frozen is a day the White House cannot force states onto its list. Nichols did not pretend to end that argument. He parked it until a higher court speaks.

Readers who already know Talwani's August order need the new name and the new city. Carl J. Nichols, Washington, late Sunday, same rule, second freeze. The justices now have two district-court records instead of one.

Republican secretaries of state have not all welcomed the August rule either. Some already print barcodes. Some do not want a federal list sitting on a Postal Service server weeks before a midterm. Nichols's order gives those offices the same breathing room it gives Democratic clerks. The Supreme Court can still collapse that room. Until it does, the envelopes that are already at the printer stay legal to mail.