Postmaster General David Steiner's Postal Service finished the federal ballot rule at nine o'clock Friday night, ten days after Judge Indira Talwani ordered Steiner by name not to finish it.
Talwani put the prohibition on page 27 of her August 11 order. She barred Steiner from enforcing Section 3 of Executive Order 14399 for the November 3 election. Separately, she barred him from "initiating or completing rulemaking to promulgate" the regulations that section demanded. Two prohibitions, listed apart. His agency did the second one.
They titled it "Ballot Mail For Federal Elections." Ninety-five pages. They made it effective the same night, August 21, and scheduled it to appear in the Federal Register on August 26 — five days after it began binding people who cannot yet read it.
They explained the hurry themselves. Delaying the effective date, the rule says, "would jeopardize implementation of this rule in time for the 2026 general election, which will be held on November 3, 2026." That is Talwani's election, the one her order covers. Steiner cannot call the rule outside her injunction while saying he rushed it to reach her election.
Talwani saw the move coming. On page 24 she wrote that the government's argument was "belied by Defendants' choice to neither issue a Final Rule that applies only after the November 3, 2026 election, nor to issue a Final Rule that applies in the twenty-seven States that are not subject to the pending injunction." She named two exits. They walked past both, then printed the reason on the rule's front page.
