U.S. Supreme Court Denies Request for Stay of Injunction Over USPS Final Rule Related to Mail-In Ballots for Midterm Election

Yesterday, on September 14, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important order which confirms that the United States Postal Service’s recent rules regarding mail-in ballots cannot be used for the upcoming 2026 election. The order denied the Government’s request to stay the preliminary injunction, which had been issued by the District Court and upheld by the First Circuit. We reported on the injunction and the anticipated Supreme Court decision in our September 14, 2026, alert. The Supreme Court’s order means the USPS Final Rule will not be in effect for the 2026 midterm elections, which are now less than 50 days away. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision

The application for the stay was presented to Justice Jackson, who referred it to the full Court. In a brief order, the Supreme Court held that the Government is “unlikely to succeed on the merits” and that “the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.”

The order now leaves the injunction in place and prevents the USPS Final Rule from any application in the midterm election, but the concurring opinion by Justice Kavanaugh and the dissenting opinion are worth considering.

Justice Kavanaugh did not join the majority in finding the Government unlikely to succeed on the merits. To the contrary, he wrote that “there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority.” His sole basis for concurring in the denial was timing: applying the rule in the 2026 elections “would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”

Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented. At the outset, Justice Alito raised threshold standing concerns, arguing that several organizational plaintiffs likely lack standing — both because their claimed injuries amount to mere setbacks to abstract social interests and because their associational standing claims rested on unnamed members who filed no declarations.

In their view, the Court “incorrectly den[ied] the Government’s application for a stay of a universal injunction that bars implementation of a final rule concerning election ballot mail,” and the Government had made the showings necessary for a stay. Justice Alito argued that the plaintiff States’ Elections Clause challenge collapses into a statutory ultra vires claim, which the Court has described as a “Hail Mary pass” that “rarely succeeds.” Specifically, Justice Alito reasoned that even assuming the USPS rule constitutes a regulation of elections, Congress may authorize such rules under the Elections Clause, and the Postal Service’s rulemaking authority is a matter of statutory, not constitutional, interpretation. Because litigants cannot convert a claim that a federal agency acted in excess of its statutory authority into a constitutional claim, the Elections Clause challenge reduces to the question of whether the Postal Service had statutory authority to promulgate the rule in the first place.

Therefore, the Government had a strong likelihood of success on the merits. On the equities, Justice Alito acknowledged the timing concerns raised by the states but argued that the plaintiff States and lower courts bore substantial responsibility for the late implementation timeline, having filed premature litigation that cast a cloud over the rulemaking process for months.

Hodgson Russ Insights

• The USPS rule is blocked for the 2026 midterms. The nationwide preliminary injunction remains in effect. States are not required to implement the rule’s special envelope, barcode, or voter-data upload requirements for the upcoming election. As the District Court held, however, the injunction does not preclude states “from voluntarily complying with the Final Rule, consistent with their state laws.” Dist. Ct. Order at 46. States considering voluntary compliance should carefully evaluate whether their existing state election law authorizes or permits the rule’s specific requirements before taking any action, especially on this compressed timeframe to the midterm election.
• State law controls. Existing state and local procedures governing the mailing, receipt, and counting of ballots continue to apply. Election officials should not adjust their processes to conform to the now-blocked USPS rule.
• No disruption to existing practice. For states whose procedures already aligned with or exceeded the rule's requirements, there is no operational change. For states with different or more flexible procedures, those continue to govern.
• The Court was not unanimous, and the merits remain open. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence signals that at least one member of the Court believes the Postal Service may ultimately have the statutory authority to issue such a rule, just not on this compressed timeline. The dissent by Justices Alito and Thomas goes further, arguing the Government should have received the stay. The merits battle is far from over.
• Watch for further litigation. The case returns to the lower courts for full merits review. A final Supreme Court ruling on the Postal Service’s authority to regulate federal ballot mail, which will likely be decided in a future term, remains possible and would have significant nationwide implications.

For now, the 2026 midterm elections will proceed under existing state ballot-mail procedures. But the larger legal question of whether the federal government may use the Postal Service to impose uniform envelope and tracking requirements on state-administered ballot mail will continue to be litigated and is likely to return to the Supreme Court.

Hodgson Russ defended mail-in voting in litigation twice before the Appellate Division and then up to New York’s highest court. Amedure v. State of New York, 210 A.D.3d 1134 (3d Dep’t 2022); Amedure v. State of New York, 232 A.D.3d 48 (3d Dep’t 2024), aff’d 43 N.Y.3d 116 (2024). We will continue to monitor this case closely and provide updates as the litigation proceeds.

If you have any questions about the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the Final Rule, and related litigation, or election matters generally, please contact Christopher Massaroni (518.433.2432), Henry Zomerfeld (716.848.1370), or another member of our Election Law and Campaign Finance Practice. 

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