Mail voting is in court.

The order does two big things. It tells the Postal Service to only deliver mail ballots to voters on a federally approved list. And it tells Homeland Security to build lists from federal records.

For states that use mail voting, Washington would get a say in which ballots are delivered.

The Constitution gives the power to regulate elections to the states. So this was going to end up in court.

The League of Women Voters and a coalition of voting rights groups filed first, on April 2.

The next day, 23 state attorneys general — including Colorado's Phil Weiser — plus DC's AG and Pennsylvania's governor filed their own suit.

Both landed in federal court in Massachusetts. Both argued the same thing: the President can't do this on his own.

This is the executive order in action.

Under the proposal, states would have to send USPS a list of every voter getting a mail ballot before ballots go out. Ballots for voters not on the list get returned.

If the rule is adopted, the Post Office stops being the carrier and starts being the gatekeeper.

Here's a piece most people don't know.

Back in 2020, the NAACP sued USPS over ballot delays. They settled in 2021, and USPS agreed to prioritize timely delivery of election mail through 2028.

The new USPS rule breaks that promise. The NAACP asked a DC judge to enforce the settlement.

That's the third lawsuit.

In Boston, Judge Indira Talwani ruled that key parts of the executive order are unconstitutional.

Her reasoning was straightforward: the Constitution puts states and Congress, not the President, in charge of election rules. That means the President can't direct the Postal Service to rewrite how states administer mail voting.

The ruling permanently blocks those parts of the executive order in Colorado and the other states that brought the lawsuit, unless a higher court reverses that decision.

In Washington DC, Judge Emmet Sullivan agreed with the NAACP.

The proposed rule violates the 2021 settlement. USPS can't move forward with it.

This one applies nationally — every state.

The DC Circuit stepped in and paused Judge Sullivan's ruling while USPS appeals.

USPS is now allowed to keep moving forward with its rulemaking.

This is what keeps the story ongoing. Nothing is settled yet.

The Trump administration asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to lift Judge Talwani's block while they appealed her ruling.

The court said no, which means the Executive Order can't take effect in Colorado.

Two days later, the government asked the Supreme Court to step in instead.

The Justice Department filed an emergency application asking the Supreme Court to lift Judge Talwani's ruling. They want the executive order to take effect while the appeals continue.

Their argument. The executive order is just "general policy guidance," and the lower courts moved too fast to block it.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson handles emergency matters from the First Circuit and will decide whether to refer it to the full Court. She'll respond sometime after Colorado and the other states file their arguments on August 3.