New Jersey voters and election officials will continue under the state’s existing vote-by-mail system after the court declined to let the Postal Service impose new federal requirements weeks before the midterm election.
MORRISTOWN, NJ – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, September 14, declined to let the Trump administration enforce new Postal Service restrictions on mail ballots before the November midterm election, leaving current state voting procedures in place for 2026.
The decision denied an emergency request to lift a lower-court injunction. It does not finally resolve the broader legal dispute over presidential and Postal Service authority, but it prevents the challenged requirements from taking effect while ballots are already being prepared and distributed in parts of the country.
The federal rule would have required state election officials to provide voter information to a federal system and use Postal Service-approved ballot-envelope designs with unique barcodes. The Postal Service could have declined to deliver ballots that did not satisfy the new requirements, according to court filings and reporting by the Associated Press and Reuters.
States and voting-rights groups challenged the plan on constitutional and administrative-law grounds. They argued that election administration belongs primarily to the states and Congress, and that the late change would leave local officials too little time to redesign envelopes, transfer voter data, test systems and notify voters before the election.
The administration argued that the Postal Service has authority to set conditions for ballot mail and that the rule would improve election security. Two justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, publicly dissented from the court’s refusal to let the rule take effect. Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated that federal authority may be considered in a future case but agreed the timing created serious practical problems for the 2026 election, according to published accounts of the order.
For New Jersey voters, the immediate consequence is continuity. County election offices may continue processing vote-by-mail applications, issuing ballots and accepting returned ballots under existing state law rather than adding the blocked federal preclearance and barcode system.
The ruling follows an earlier stage of the case in which the Supreme Court, on August 24, stayed a different injunction while litigation continued. A later injunction addressing the Postal Service’s final rule produced the emergency application the court rejected on September 14. That procedural history matters because the latest action is not a final judgment on every disputed provision.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill issued a statement on September 15 welcoming the decision and arguing that states have constitutional authority to administer elections. Her statement reflects the state’s position in the litigation; the court’s order itself rests on the emergency application before it and leaves the underlying case open.
“States run elections, not Donald Trump. Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision reinforces what we’ve long known: vote-by-mail is a safe, secure, and reliable way to vote. Our Founding Fathers understood the danger of putting too much power in the hands of one person. They built a Constitution that gives the states the authority to administer elections for a reason. This is another win for New Jersey voters and another loss for Donald Trump’s attempt to rig elections.” – Gov. Mikie Sherrill
Voters should continue using official county and state election instructions. The ruling removes the threatened federal overlay for this election, but it does not change ordinary requirements governing vote-by-mail applications, ballot completion, signatures, postmarks or receipt deadlines.