Seven weeks before the November election, three courts have said three different things about President Trump’s executive order on mail voting, and the practical answer for a Massachusetts voter is simpler than the docket suggests: the ballot you request from your town clerk in October will be mailed, counted and governed by Massachusetts law, exactly as it was in 2024. Here is why, and what is still being fought over.
What the order says
Executive Order 14399, signed March 31, 2026, has three operative parts. It directs the Department of Homeland Security to build a citizenship list for every state. It directs the Attorney General to prioritize prosecuting election officials who issue ballots to ineligible voters. And it directs the Postal Service to create a list of approved mail voters, drawn from state-supplied voter data, and to refuse delivery of ballot mail to anyone not on it.
The Postal Service implemented the third part with a rule published August 26, “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections.” It would require every state’s chief election official to submit ballot envelope designs for Postal Service approval, open an account on a new federal portal, and upload the names, addresses and barcodes of every voter receiving a mail ballot, all before November.
The three rulings
The states’ case: the Supreme Court sided with the administration, on standing. Massachusetts is one of 23 states and the District of Columbia, led by California, that sued in Boston in April. Judge Indira Talwani granted the states summary judgment on June 25 and the First Circuit refused to stay her order on July 25. On August 24 the Supreme Court, 6 to 3, stayed the injunction. The majority held the states had not shown a concrete injury because the order’s provisions were “internal directives” to federal agencies that could be challenged only once implemented. Justice Jackson, dissenting, wrote that the majority had missed “the Government’s actual objective: to secure our imprimatur for its effort to foment chaos ahead of the November elections.” That case is Trump v. California, No. 26A124, and it remains alive; the Supreme Court decided timing, not the merits.
The voters’ case: the Postal Service list is blocked. On August 11, in a separate suit by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and other groups, the district court in Boston enjoined the Postal Service from implementing the approved-voter list for the November election and any earlier federal election, holding that “the executive branch has no authority to regulate elections.” The Supreme Court’s August 24 order noted that this separate injunction remained in effect.
The rule itself: blocked, and the First Circuit agrees. Once the Postal Service published its final rule on August 26, the challengers came back. On September 4 Judge Talwani enjoined the rule for the 2026 midterms, finding that “compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections” and that voter disenfranchisement would be “practically inevitable.” On September 10 a unanimous First Circuit panel refused to stay her order. The rule, the panel wrote, is “a regulation of the manner of holding elections for members of Congress, which the Elections Clause of the Constitution assigns to the States and Congress, and not to an executive agency,” and the general postal statutes the government cited were a “wafer-thin reed” for a task the Constitution assigns elsewhere. The administration has asked the Supreme Court to stay that ruling too. The Postal Service has said it will not implement the rule for 2026 unless it obtains relief.
What this means for a Massachusetts mail ballot
Nothing changes. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin said in August that it would be “impossible to try to put this order into effect in the period of time that’s left between now and the general election,” and the courts have since made that the law for this cycle. The rules are the state’s rules:
- Register by Saturday, October 24. Arrival at the election office, not postmark, controls.
- Apply for a mail ballot by 5 p.m. Tuesday, October 27. That is the deadline to ask, not to return. Applying at the deadline leaves under a week for the ballot to reach you and get back.
- Return it postmarked by November 3. Under chapter 54, section 25B, a ballot for a biennial state election that is postmarked on or before Election Day is counted if it reaches the clerk by 5 p.m. on Friday, November 6. A ballot delivered by hand or drop box must be in by 8 p.m. on Election Day.
No federal portal, no approved-voter list, and no Postal Service envelope approval applies to that ballot this year. The clerk’s office you have always dealt with is the only office involved.
What is still open
Two things. The Supreme Court could stay Talwani’s September 4 order, which would put the Postal Service rule back in play for November; the government has asked. Given that the Postal Service itself has said compliance is not possible in the time remaining, and that the First Circuit found the rule likely unlawful on the merits rather than on standing, that would be a different kind of order than the August one. And the merits of all three cases will be decided after November, which means the same fight returns for 2028 with the Supreme Court’s standing ruling as the starting point.
We track Massachusetts’s role in the litigation against the administration in our tracker of the Attorney General’s federal cases, and the full November calendar in the three deadlines that decide whether you vote.
Is Trump’s mail voting order in effect for the November 2026 election?
Not in any way that reaches a Massachusetts voter. The Postal Service rule implementing it is enjoined for the 2026 midterms, the First Circuit refused to stay that injunction on September 10, and the Postal Service has said it will not implement the rule unless a court lifts the order.
What did the Supreme Court decide in August?
On August 24, by 6 to 3, it stayed the injunction the states had won, holding the states lacked standing to challenge the order before it was implemented. It did not rule on whether the order is lawful, and it left a separate injunction against the Postal Service in place.
When must a Massachusetts mail ballot arrive?
For the November 3 state election, a ballot postmarked by Election Day counts if received by 5 p.m. on November 6. Ballots returned by hand or drop box must be in by 8 p.m. on November 3.
What is the deadline to apply for a mail ballot?
5 p.m. on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.
Could the Supreme Court change this before November?
It could stay Judge Talwani’s September 4 order. The administration has asked. The Postal Service has said it cannot comply in time regardless.
Rulings from the First Circuit’s September 10 order as reported by the Volokh Conspiracy, the September 4 district court order as reported by NBC News, the Supreme Court’s August 24 order in Trump v. California, No. 26A124, as reported by SCOTUSblog, and the August 11 order as described by the ACLU. Postal Service rule from the Federal Register, August 26, 2026. Secretary Galvin’s statements as reported by WBUR, August 27, 2026. Massachusetts deadlines from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s schedule and G.L. c. 54, § 25B. General information about election law, not legal advice.