{"id":455345,"date":"2026-09-06T11:31:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/455345\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T11:31:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:31:00","slug":"massachusetts-federal-judge-halts-usps-mail-voting-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/455345\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts federal judge halts USPS mail-voting changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/p>\n

David Quiel, an elections assistant, works on a machine that processes vote by mail ballots at the Department of Voter Registration and Elections in Sacramento, Calif., on Thursday, May 17, 2018.<\/p>\n

Renee C. Byer<\/p>\n

rbyer@sacbee.com<\/p>\n

A federal judge in Massachusetts indefinitely blocked a White House executive order on Friday that would drastically restrict citizens\u2019 ability to vote by mail<\/a> just weeks before California is set to issue ballots ahead of the November midterms.<\/p>\n

Last month, Attorney General Rob Bonta and 24 other states sued after the Supreme Court rolled back a previous court ruling pausing President Donald Trump\u2019s March executive mandate ordering states to create citizenship voter lists and for the U.S. Postal Service to restrict mail-in ballots.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Massachusetts District Court Judge Indira Talwani indefinitely extended a previous ruling from August 27 that blocked those rules from going into effect for 14 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chaos engendered by the Final Rule\u2019s immediate deadlines is significantly interfering with Plaintiff Organizations\u2019 mission to provide its members with accurate and reliable information about how to vote, including by mail,\u201d Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote. \u201cPlaintiff Organizations do not know whether to advise their members to vote by mail, despite legal entitlement, due to the high risk of disenfranchisement.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, said in a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner that his office<\/a> had received a whistleblower complaint accusing the agency of moving forward with a \u201crushed and potentially unlawful\u201d plan to carry out Trump\u2019s executive order despite the court order blocking it.<\/p>\n

Talwani\u2019s order came a day after she oversaw a hearing to consider the request from Bonta and the other attorneys general for a preliminary injunction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve now secured longer-term relief that will keep the USPS changes blocked while our case moves forward,\u201d Bonta said in a statement Friday. \u201cWe will continue to take all steps to stop the Trump Administration from trampling on voting rights and restricting mail voting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talwani\u2019s order is likely not the final word on the matter. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to immediately allow it<\/a> to enforce the new Postal Service rules.<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson requested that the plaintiffs respond by Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Lia Russell<\/a><\/p>\n

The Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n

Lia Russell covers California\u2019s governor for The Sacramento Bee\u2019s Capitol Bureau. Originally from San Francisco, Lia previously worked for The Baltimore Sun and the Bangor Daily News in Maine.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Quiel, an elections assistant, works on a machine that processes vote by mail ballots at the Department…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-455345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}