U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani temporarily blocked the Postal Service from carrying out its new mail-ballot rule late Thursday, granting Democratic states and voting groups a two-week restraining order and scheduling a preliminary-injunction hearing for the following Thursday. [2] The administration appealed Friday. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis called the order "unreasoned and unlawful" and noted that the Supreme Court had just reversed Talwani's prior block. [2]

That is the same loop this paper named on Aug. 26: a violation finding, then a lift, then another pause, and still no durable rule. Talwani wrote that USPS was refusing to send ballots unless states submitted envelopes for advance approval "without regard to impending deadlines for the November 3, 2026 election," and that challengers were likely to win on the claim that the service lacks authority to issue the rule. [2]

George Skelton's Monday Los Angeles Times column is the first Aug. 31-dated engagement with the fight. He notes that 72 percent of California voters approve of balloting by mail, that 81 percent of 2024 ballots in the state were cast that way, and that a new state bill would make it a felony to order the withholding of a ballot's delivery — a measure he doubts will ever jail a postmaster. [1] The column and the restraining order describe the same unresolved machinery. A hearing is not a remedy.

-- ANNA WEBER, Berlin