August 25, 2026: She Found USPS Defendants Violated Her Mail-Ballot Injunction.

League of Women Voters of Massachusetts et al. v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-11549-IT (D. Mass.). FACT: August 25, 2026 memorandum and order, ECF 201, on Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion to Enforce Preliminary Injunction (Doc. 189). The first heading in the order is “Defendants Have Violated the Preliminary Injunction.”

FACT: The August 11 nationwide preliminary injunction had prohibited the USPS defendants from implementing, giving effect to, or enforcing Section 3 of Executive Order 14399 for the November 3, 2026 or any earlier federal election, including refusing to transmit mail-in or absentee ballots, or otherwise initiating or completing the Section 3 rulemaking for those elections. The August 25 order finds that, on Friday evening, August 21, 2026, Defendant USPS completed rulemaking by sending a Final Rule implementing Section 3 of the EO to the Office of the Federal Register, with an immediate effective date of August 21, 2026, and a Federal Register publication date of August 26, 2026.

Defendants and intervenors argued there was no violation because the Final Rule states the Postal Service will not implement the rule specifically for the 2026 election unless and until the government obtains relief from the injunctions. The court wrote: “These arguments ignore the court’s explicit directive not to ‘initiat[e] or complet[e]’ rulemaking.” It found that “Defendants violated the preliminary injunction in this case.”

FACT: Under “The Appropriate Relief,” she declined the plaintiffs’ requested further order — that the Final Rule have no force or effect for covered elections, and that USPS take no implementation or preparatory steps. She wrote that the requested relief will not remedy the past violation and does not change the current landscape. The conclusion: “the court finds that Defendants violated the court’s Preliminary Injunction but imposes no remedy other than identifying the violation.” That is a civil docket finding that defendants violated an injunction. It is not a criminal contempt conviction and not a crime.