Judge Indira Talwani vacated her own preliminary injunction on Wednesday, and with it the last court order standing between the Postal Service and November's mail ballots. Her nine-page order comes down to one line: the court "GRANTS Defendants' Motion to Reconsider and VACATES its August 11, 2026 Preliminary Injunction." Sixty-nine days before Election Day, nothing on any docket stops the rule.
USPS wrote its own condition into the rule. It would "not take actions to implement the rule specifically for the 2026 election unless and until the government obtains relief from those injunctions." There were two. The Supreme Court relieved the first on August 24. Talwani relieved the second on August 26. Postmaster General David Steiner has met every predicate he set for himself.
She did it under protest. The Supreme Court's ruling "compelled" her, she wrote; the plaintiffs hold "substantial arguments that might persuade the Supreme Court to reach a different result." In a footnote she noted the government "chose to seek only an emergency stay where they could avoid review of the merits." She never reached the merits herself. She vacated on ripeness — the states had sued a proposed rule, and Steiner has since made it final. Without prejudice. They may amend and come back.
