U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a press briefing at the White House, on the one-year mark into his second term in office, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS Nathan Howard
AllRise New reporter Adam Klasfeld reports Judge Indira Talwani blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ‘experiment’ that could result in valid ballots being tossed.
“[T]he court finds [...] that immediate implementation of the Final Rule issued less than seventy days before the November 2026 election threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail,” said Talwani in her order blocking Trump's EO.
Her bigger argument, according to Klasfeld, is that the Constitution simply “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.”
“Broadly, the Constitution vests the President with “executive Power” and commands him to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed[.]’ The President ‘plays no direct role in the process’ of appointing electors, ‘nor does he have authority to control the state officials who do,’” she wrote.
The judge added that the Supreme Court has observed, that “the President’s power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker.”
Thus ends the deliberation that began on Thursday to decide whether to extend an earlier injunction indefinitely. Talwani last week blocked the Postal Service from implementing the plan for 14 days, a period that would have expired Sept. 10.
Prior to her Friday decision, Talwani had asked heated questions of Justice Department attorneys and a coalition of Republican states regarding how they believed they could implement the new rule on the eve of early voting across many states. Even then, her questions highlighted concerns raised by a broad coalition of nonprofits and Democratic states that Trump’s Postal Service could chaotically reject thousands of valid ballots if allowed to plow ahead with Trump’s new rule.
