Trump admin urges SCOTUS to nix Obama judge's attempt to 'run out the clock' on election security initiative

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, a daughter of immigrants who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, appears desperate to undermine the Trump administration at every opportunity — even at the expense of American election security.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March aimed at protecting "the integrity of the mail as a medium for transmitting Federal election ballots and establish[ing] uniform standards for mail-in or absentee ballot services implemented through the United States Postal Service."

'The district court's erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government's ability to implement Section 3.'

The USPS subsequently issued a proposed rule that would implement best practices in accordance with the order, including a process that would help "evidence how many ballots have been mailed and allow law enforcement officials to compare the total number of mailed ballots to the total number of received ballots to detect potential issues meriting further investigation."

The threat of higher standards was evidently too much to bear for liberal activist groups and various blue states.

Twenty-three Democratic-run states led by California and the District of Columbia challenged Trump's executive order, claiming several parts of it violated the separation of powers, the Elections and Electors Clauses, and the 10th Amendment's anti-commandeering doctrine.

Talwani ruled in June that the executive order did not apply in the blue states that raised the fuss and granted them a permanent injunction.

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US Solicitor General D. John Sauer. Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images.

In a separate but related case overseen by Talwani, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and other liberal advocacy groups sued the government, claiming that sections 2 and 3 of the EO were unconstitutional and violated their members' rights to vote.

On Tuesday, the Obama judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the USPS from "implementing, giving effect to, or enforcing Section 3 of Executive Order No. 14399, with respect to the November 3, 2026, or any earlier federal election."

Section 3 of Trump's EO requires that all outbound ballot mail must be in an envelope that:

• is marked as official election mail;
• is automation-compatible and bears a unique intelligent mail barcode; and
• has undergone a design review by the USPS to ensure compliance with agency mailing standards.

Section 3 also gave states until 60 days prior to the midterm elections to notify the USPS whether they intend to submit to the agency a list of eligible voters — with their eligibility confirmed on the basis of citizenship data — whom they intend to provide a mail-in or absentee ballot via the postal service.

The activist judge wrote, "Where the EO is presently causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy, the court finds that enfranchisement heavily outweighs the executive’s attempt to unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election regulation."

"That it is now less than 90 days before the November 3, 2026, midterm elections underscores the critical need for an injunction to prevent Defendants from changing election rules on the eve of the election," added Talwani.

The Trump administration — which asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the first of the two cases before Talwani on July 27 — asked again for a stay on Wednesday, stressing that the Obama judge's order in the League of Women Voters of Mass v. Trump case "violates well-established Article III standing and ripeness requirements for all the same reasons as its prior orders."

"Courts cannot enjoin implementation of an executive order that merely instructs agencies to pursue a proposed policy in a manner that is consistent with law, while leaving open material issues for them to resolve, unless and until those agencies actually take concrete actions that injure the plaintiffs," wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer.

Sauer noted that barring a stay from the high court, "the district court's erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government's ability to implement Section 3 of the executive order for the federal elections in November, thereby causing irreparable harm to the federal government, the public, and election integrity."

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