The Trump administration on Thursday filed an urgent appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to set aside a federal judge’s order that blocks new mail‑ballot restrictions—just hours after the government admitted it could not tell that same judge whether the critical online tracking system for the program was even operational.

The appeal came on the eve of a major milestone in the 2026 midterm election: North Carolina is scheduled to begin mailing out absentee ballots on Friday, kicking off a wave of ballot shipments across the country. The administration’s last‑minute legal maneuver underscores the chaos surrounding President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail voting, which has been mired in litigation for months.

A System That May Not Work

At the center of the dispute is an online portal that would track tens of millions of mail ballots. Under the executive order, states would be required to upload their lists of mail voters to the portal; if the data on the envelopes does not match what is in the system, the ballots would not be delivered. The Postal Service would also have to approve the design of every state’s ballot envelopes before they could be mailed.

During a hearing in Boston, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani pressed Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik on whether the government could actually implement the plan. “I don’t even have a declaration from the Postal Service: ‘This is how it will work.’ I don’t have it. I have nothing,” Talwani said, adding that it felt like the government was running an “experiment” to see if the system would function in the upcoming election. “As you sit here today, you can’t tell me the government has a program ready to go?” she asked.

Velchik could not confirm the portal was active—and it remained inactive as of this week. He argued instead that the main legal question is whether Talwani has the authority to stop the rule at all.

A Whistleblower Warning and a Judge’s Rebuke

A whistleblower report made public this week warns that the Postal Service’s new requirements could lead to millions of mail ballots never being sent. The rule mandates that all ballots be physically brought to post offices before being mailed to voters—and if a single barcode registers an error, the entire batch, even one containing tens of thousands of legitimate ballots, gets thrown out.

Election officials say there is simply no way they can comply with the Postal Service directives, which could require a complete overhaul of their operations with virtually no time left before the election. Most election offices have already printed their envelopes and ballots. Velchik told the judge that states are being offered a choice to opt into the system, but the Postal Service has yet to identify a single state that has done so—not even among the 12 states that have intervened in the lawsuit to support the administration’s position.

At one point, Talwani scolded Missouri Solicitor General Lou Capozzi, who was arguing on behalf of the project: “You want the voters in your states to be disenfranchised,” she said. “I don’t understand the interest”. Capozzi denied that voters would be disenfranchised.

A Familiar Legal Battle

Talwani has handled this case before. In June, she prohibited the administration from implementing Trump’s executive order for the November election, ruling that the changes came too close to voting day for the federal government to embark on such a project. But the Supreme Court late last month ruled that Talwani’s order was premature because the Postal Service had not yet published the regulations governing how it would apply Trump’s order. The agency did so just before the high court’s ruling came down, prompting Democrats and voting rights groups to swiftly refile their lawsuits.

They argue that the president has no authority to set election rules—a power the Constitution reserves to the states and, in some cases, to Congress. They won an initial victory with Talwani’s 14‑day temporary restraining order, which the administration has already appealed. Talwani is now considering whether to extend that order beyond September 10.

The high court’s conservative majority previously allowed the president’s plan to move ahead, but they have not yet decided whether it is legal. With the Supreme Court now being asked to intervene again—and ballots set to go out in North Carolina on Friday—the fate of the administration’s mail‑voting restrictions could be decided in a matter of days, even as the underlying system remains untested and, by the government’s own admission, not yet ready for prime time.