Amicus Curiae Brief — United States Postal Service, et al., Applicants v. California, et al.

Supreme Court briefSep 9, 2026

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No. 26A305

In the Supreme Court of the United States

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, ET AL.,

Applicants,

STATE OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL.,

Respondents.

DONALD J. TRUMP, ET AL.,

Applicants,

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF MASSACHUSETTS, ET AL.,

Respondents.

ON APPLICATION FOR A STAY OF THE PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION ISSUED BY

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

BRIEF OF NATIONAL SECURITY LEADERS FOR AMERICA

AS AMICUS CURIAE IN OPPOSITION TO APPLICATION FOR STAY

Austin C. Schlick

Counsel of Record

Yevgeniy Pilipovskiy

Hassan Ahmad

Kimberly Railey

Laura Lowry

COVINGTON & BURLING LLP

One CityCenter

850 Tenth Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

aschlick@cov.com

(202) 662-6000

September 9, 2026

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES .......................................................................................... ii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ............................................................................... 1

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT ............................................... 2

BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................. 4

Military and Diplomatic Families Confront Unique Challenges

When Voting. ............................................................................................ 4

UOCAVA Requires that Absentee Ballots Be Made Available to

Eligible Voters Who Request Them and that Those Absentee

Ballots Can Be Returned and Counted. .................................................. 7

USPS’s Final Rule Provides No Viable Process for Respecting

UOCAVA’s Mandates. .............................................................................. 9

ARGUMENT ................................................................................................................ 12

The Requirements of Section 3 of Executive Order 14,399 and the Final

Rule Conflict with UOCAVA’s Mandates to the States and the Executive

Branch. .............................................................................................................. 12

II.

Implementation of the Final Rule Would Produce Chaos in Military and

Diplomatic Voting That Prevents the States from Counting Ballots of

Eligible Voters. .................................................................................................. 19

UOCAVA’s Firm Deadlines Do Not Allow for Correction of the

Final Rule’s Inadequate Procedure for Exclusion of UOCAVA

Ballots from the Enrollment-and-Barcode Regime. .............................. 20

Any Errors in a Rushed Rollout of the Final Rule Will Impact

Those Voters Least Able to Correct Them. ........................................... 22

Purcell’s Anti-Disruption Principle Applies with Particular Force

to Military and Overseas Voters, Who Have No Opportunity to

Try Again. ............................................................................................... 23

CONCLUSION............................................................................................................. 26

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

Cases

League of Women Voters of N.C. v. North Carolina,

769 F.3d 224 (4th Cir. 2014) .................................................................................. 24

League of Women Voters of U.S. v. Newby,

838 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2016) .................................................................................... 24

Merrill v. Milligan,

142 S. Ct. 879 (2022) .............................................................................................. 24

Purcell v. Gonzalez,

549 U.S. 1 (2006) .................................................................................................... 23

Republican Nat’l Comm. v. Democratic Nat’l Comm.,

589 U.S. 423 (2020) ................................................................................................ 23

Watson v. Republican Nat’l Comm.,

609 U.S. __, 146 S. Ct. 2165 (2026) ........................................................................ 13

Statutes

52 U.S.C. § 20301 ................................................................................................. 8, 9, 13

52 U.S.C. § 20302 ......................................................................7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 20, 21, 24

52 U.S.C. § 20303 ........................................................................................................... 8

52 U.S.C. § 20304 ......................................................................................... 9, 10, 13, 20

Fla. Stat. § 101.68 .......................................................................................................... 6

Ga. Code § 21-2-386 ....................................................................................................... 6

Ga. Code § 21-2-419 ....................................................................................................... 6

Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, Pub. L. No. 111-84,

123 Stat. 2190 (2009)................................................................................................ 7

Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, Pub. L. No. 99410, 100 Stat. 924 (1986).......................................................................................... 1

Regulatory Materials

Ballot Mail for Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg. 32,915 (June 2, 2026) ..................... 14

Ballot Mail for Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg. 54,966

(Aug. 26, 2026) ................................................. 1, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21

Exec. Order No. 14,399, 91 Fed. Reg. 17,125 (2026) ............................ 1, 13, 20, 21, 22

Legislative Materials

H.R. Rep. No. 99-765 (1986) .................................................................................... 4, 25

Why the Wait? Unpacking California’s Untimely Election Counting

Process: Hearing Before the Comm. on H. Admin., 119th Cong.

(2025) ........................................................................................................................ 6

Other Authorities

Camilla Rodriguez Guzman, Serving in the Military Shouldn’t Mean

It’s Harder to Vote, Nat’l Conf. of State Legis. (Aug. 26, 2025) .............................. 6

Comment of National Security Leaders for America to the United

States Postal Service Proposed Rule Amending the Domestic Mail

Manual Regarding the Transmission of Mail-In or Absentee Ballots

for Federal Elections (July 1, 2026) ....................................................................... 18

Fed. Voting Assistance Prog., 2026-27 Voting Assistance Guide (Oct.

2025).............................................................................................................. 6, 20, 21

Fed. Voting Assistance Prog., Issue Brief: Ballot Outcomes by Ballot

Receipt Date (archived Aug. 25, 2026) ..................................................................... 7

Fed. Voting Assistance Prog., State of the Military Voter (archived July

29, 2026) .................................................................................................................... 5

Mariel Padilla, If You’re in the Military, Voting This Year Could Be

Tricky, The 19th (July 12, 2024) .............................................................................. 5

U.S. Election Assistance Comm’n, Election Administration and Voting

Survey 2024 Comprehensive Report (2025) ............................................... 4, 5, 7, 12

U.S. Gov’t Accountability Off., GAO-25-107098 Highlights, State

Department: Spending on Pay, Benefits, and Allowances for

Overseas Employees (Dec. 19, 2024) ........................................................................ 4

USPS, Intelligent Mail Barcode .................................................................................. 18

iii

USPS Office of Inspector General, Audit Report: Manual Mail

Processing Efficiency (Sep. 21, 2021) ..................................................................... 17

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1

National Security Leaders for America (“NSL4A”) is a non-partisan network of

over 1,500 former senior military and civilian leaders possessing broad experience in

national security issues and sharing viewpoints and affiliations from across the

political spectrum. Over 800 of NSL4A’s members are retired Generals, Admirals, or

other senior officers from one of the uniformed services of the United States.

Approximately 200 of its members served as ambassadors of the United States in

foreign countries, while many more served in senior diplomatic posts around the

world.

This extensive service to our country has afforded many NSL4A members firsthand experience with the difficulties military and diplomatic personnel, and their

families, encounter in casting ballots when on assignment abroad or in the United

States away from their legal residences. NSL4A can assist the Court to understand

the harms that will be inflicted upon the voting rights of uniformed military

members, diplomats, and their families by the restrictive policies announced in

Executive Order 14,399 of March 31, 2026, 91 Fed. Reg. 17,125, and the United States

Postal Service’s (“USPS”) Final Rule, Ballot Mail for Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg.

54,966 (Aug. 26, 2026) (to be codified at 39 C.F.R. pt. 111) (“Final Rule”). The

Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, Pub. L. No. 99-410, 100 Stat.

924 (1986) (“UOCAVA”) was enacted to protect the absentee voting rights of

1 Pursuant to Rule 37.6, amicus curiae affirms that no counsel for a party authored

this brief in whole or in part, and that no person other than amicus curiae or its

counsel made any monetary contributions intended to fund the preparation or

submission of this brief.

uniformed and overseas voters. NSL4A and its members can describe to the Court

how Executive Order 14,399 and the Final Rule conflict with the protections Congress

afforded to voters in federal service under UOCAVA.

NSL4A members have experienced firsthand the importance of timely delivery

of UOCAVA ballots to voters, their successful return to election offices, and accurate

tabulation of these ballots. NSL4A can provide a unique and meaningful perspective

to ensure that UOCAVA voters can exercise their fundamental right to access the

ballot box and have their votes counted. NSL4A is not aware of any party or court

having addressed these issues in the instant or related litigation.

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The Government’s Application claims the Final Rule violates no state law.

Application at 9. But it ignores the requirements that UOCAVA imposes on the

States to protect the voting rights of UOCAVA voters. Congress enacted UOCAVA

to ensure that military personnel and their family members serving or living away

from their voting residence, as well as diplomats and other American citizens living

overseas, can have their votes counted despite the delays and practical barriers

inherent in voting away from their legal residences. Section 3 of Executive Order

14,399 directs USPS to impose a new barcode-and-enrollment regime for ballot mail,

implemented on a compressed election-year timeline, that interferes with the

protections Congress guaranteed UOCAVA voters.

Although the Final Rule

nominally purports to exempt UOCAVA ballots from its implementation of Section

3’s unlawful requirements, the exclusion is neither developed nor workable.

Confirming that the Final Rule’s exclusion for UOCAVA ballots is fictional, the

Government’s Application omits any mention of it. The Government thus leaves the

admitted conflict between UOCAVA and the Postal Service’s ballot-blocking policy

entirely unaddressed.

This Court should decline to stay the District Court’s preliminary injunction

enjoining implementation of the Final Rule for multiple reasons, including two of

particular significance to UOCAVA voters.

First, the Final Rule is ultra vires and cannot be lawfully implemented because

it would impose envelope-formatting requirements on the States that UOCAVA

expressly prohibits. The Final Rule provides no plausibly effective procedures by

which USPS can ensure that ballots mailed to or returned by UOCAVA voters will

not be rejected as noncompliant under the Final Rule’s barcode-and-enrollment

policy.

Second, implementation of the Final Rule would inject confusion and

operational disruption into military and diplomatic and other overseas voting at the

very time when State officials, under express requirements of the statute, must

distribute, receive, and count UOCAVA ballots. The processes prescribed to protect

UOCAVA voters preclude any realistic conclusion that there will be adequate time to

resolve the conflicts and uncertainties associated with the Final Rule’s ballot

procedures before the November 3, 2026, general election. Accordingly, allowing

USPS to implement the Final Rule would create an imminent risk that military

personnel and their families serving away from their legal residences and diplomats

and other eligible voters living abroad will be effectively disenfranchised.

BACKGROUND

Military and Diplomatic Families Confront Unique Challenges

When Voting.

For as long as the United States has sent her citizens to serve at geographically

dispersed domestic and overseas military installations and diplomatic postings,

military members and diplomatic personnel, along with their family members, have

confronted unique challenges in casting their ballots.

Stationed hundreds or

thousands of miles from home, military members often serve in remote areas with

slow or sporadic mail service. H.R. Rep. No. 99-765, at 10 (1986). They may also be

away from their posts for days or weeks at a time. Id. For this group, voting by

absentee ballot is frequently the only feasible way to exercise their democratic right.

As Congress has noted, “[w]hen overseas voters fail to receive their absentee ballots

in time to vote and return them, they are clearly and effectively disenfranchised.” Id.

at 12.

These issues are not abstract. Many of the estimated 1.31 million active-duty

members and roughly 549,000 military spouses and voting-age dependents are

assigned to areas away from their legal voting residence. U.S. Election Assistance

Comm’n, Election Administration and Voting Survey 2024 Comprehensive Report

194–95 (2025) (“2024 Report”), https://perma.cc/SE86-6WBP.

Thousands of

diplomatic personnel staff hundreds of foreign U.S. posts.

See U.S. Gov’t

Accountability Off., GAO-25-107098 Highlights, State Department: Spending on Pay,

Benefits,

and

Allowances

for

Overseas

Employees

(Dec.

19,

2024),

https://perma.cc/ZF5F-EPPH. In practice, most of these voters use the postal system

to cast their ballots. In the 2024 general election, 65.8 percent of absentee ballots

returned and submitted by military and overseas voters arrived via postal mail. 2024

Report at 204.

Yet even with the hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic ballots

mailed out each year, these voters continue to face particular challenges. In 2024, 15

percent of military voters reported they did not receive their ballot in time or that

their ballot never arrived.

Fed. Voting Assistance Prog. (“FVAP”), State of the

Military Voter (archived July 29, 2026), https://perma.cc/DRT6-2X8U. Even voters

who do receive ballots have reported that their ballots were never counted. In the

2020 election, for instance, one military spouse stationed in Japan requested an

absentee ballot and mailed it back to her home state of South Dakota the day after

she received it. Mariel Padilla, If You’re in the Military, Voting This Year Could Be

Tricky, The 19th (July 12, 2024), https://19thnews.org/2024/07/military-votingchallenges-election-2024/. When the voter went to check her ballot identification

number on the county supervisor’s website, a notification stated her ballot had been

“received but not counted.” Id. She contacted the county supervisor of elections by

email but never heard back. Id. Being thousands of miles away from home in

connection with her spouse’s posting, the voter was unable to resolve her voting issue

in person and was unable to have her ballot counted. She was disenfranchised.

As mail ballots are initially sent to the voter and then returned to election

officials, delays and other issues arise for two principal reasons. First, due to the

distance some of these ballots must travel, military and diplomatic voters can

confront condensed timelines to receive and return their ballots. Mail to military

families stationed abroad commonly can take six to eight weeks to arrive. See Why

the Wait? Unpacking California’s Untimely Election Counting Process: Hearing Before

the Comm. on H. Admin., 119th Cong. 26–27 (2025) (statement of Rebecca Nowatchik,

Dir. of External P’ships, Secure Families Initiative), https://perma.cc/JSZ6-485C. In

an apparent acknowledgment of mail delays, UOCAVA voters are advised to return

their ballots as early as 30 or 35 calendar days before Election Day. See FVAP, 2026–

27 Voting Assistance Guide 10 (Oct. 2025), https://perma.cc/KG45-TMBD.

Second, military members and diplomats may have transient posts, further

complicating ballot delivery. A 2025 media report highlighted the case of a Navy

sailor whose post was “essentially his ship.” Camilla Rodriguez Guzman, Serving in

the Military Shouldn’t Mean It’s Harder to Vote, Nat’l Conf. of State Legis. (Aug. 26,

2025), https://perma.cc/G7FB-4MU8. The sailor requested an absentee ballot for the

2024 presidential election, but the ballot “never made it through the mail” due to

processing problems, preventing him from voting. Id.

Furthermore, some States provide voters only a very brief window after

Election Day to fix a missing or mismatched signature on a mail ballot. In Florida

and Georgia, for example, military voters whose absentee ballots are rejected because

of a signature or verification issue have only until the second or third day after the

election, respectively, to provide the required affidavit and personal identification to

cure the ballot. Fla. Stat. § 101.68; Ga. Code §§ 21-2-386, 21-2-419. For military and

overseas voters, these compressed deadlines can be impossible to meet. Notifications

may arrive late, and the voters may be in service away from their mailing address

when the notification comes.

A recent report by the Federal Voting Assistance Program highlights these

obstacles, noting that “[w]hen a ballot is received too close to Election Day, there may

not be sufficient time to resolve errors, and a ballot that might have otherwise been

counted if the issue had been fixed is ultimately rejected.” FVAP, Issue Brief: Ballot

Outcomes by Ballot Receipt Date 2 (archived Aug. 25, 2026), https://perma.cc/DQ35H762. And the problem is becoming more severe. In the 2024 federal elections, the

overall rejection rate for regular absentee ballots submitted by UOCAVA voters was

3.7 percent—a 77 percent increase from the 2.1 percent reported in 2020. 2024 Report

at 206.

In short, military families and diplomatic personnel commonly must cast their

votes by mail, and they face elevated barriers when doing so.

Faithful

implementation of protective laws like UOCAVA is critical to ensuring these

individuals can successfully exercise their franchise.

UOCAVA Requires that Absentee Ballots Be Made Available to

Eligible Voters Who Request Them and that Those Absentee

Ballots Can Be Returned and Counted.

Generally, UOCAVA requires States to permit covered voters “to use absentee

registration procedures and to vote by absentee ballot in general, special, primary,

and runoff elections for Federal office.” 52 U.S.C. § 20302(a)(1). As amended through

the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE Act), Pub. L. No. 111-84,

Subtitle H, §§ 575–89, 123 Stat. 2190, 2318–35 (2009), UOCAVA requires that

(absent a hardship exemption) when the request for an absentee ballot is received at

least 45 days before the election, States must “transmit a validly requested absentee

ballot to an absent uniformed services voter or overseas voter . . . not later than 45

days before the election.” 52 U.S.C. § 20302(a)(8). For the November 3, 2026, general

election, that date is September 19, 2026. In practical effect, therefore, UOCAVA

requires State procedures for absentee voting to be established and operational

significantly in advance of 45 days before the election, that is, well before September

19 of this year.

As to registration and application, UOCAVA requires States to accept any

valid voter registration application and absentee ballot application received at least

30 days before any election. Id. § 20302(a)(2). For the upcoming general election,

therefore, States must accept registrations and absentee ballot applications as late

as October 4, 2026. In addition to any method of registering to vote or applying for

an absentee ballot prescribed by the States, UOCAVA further requires States to

accept and process “an official post card form, containing both an absentee voter

registration application and an absentee ballot application” prescribed by federal

authorities. Id. §§ 20301(b)(2), 20302(a)(4). UOCAVA also provides for a “Federal

write-in absentee ballot . . . for use in general, special, primary, and runoff elections

for Federal office by . . . voters who make timely application for, and do not receive,

States[’] absentee ballots.” Id. § 20303(a)(1). Among other requirements, UOCAVA

requires the States to establish procedures to enable covered voters to request and

receive voter registration and absentee ballot applications by mail or electronically,

id. § 20302(a)(6)(A)–(B), and to transmit “blank absentee ballots” to eligible voters

“by mail and electronically,” id. § 20302(a)(7). The Executive Branch must assist the

States’ fulfillment of their duties to facilitate the mailing of covered ballots. Id.

§ 20301.

As to ballot collection and delivery of marked ballots, UOCAVA requires

federal authorities to implement procedures for collecting and facilitating the

delivery of marked absentee ballots “to the appropriate election officials” “not later

than the date by which an absentee ballot must be received in order to be counted in

the election.”

Id. § 20304(a)–(b).

For these purposes, UOCAVA directs federal

authorities to “cooperat[e] and coordinat[e] with” USPS to “provide expedited mail

delivery service for all such marked absentee ballots . . . that are collected on or before

the [prescribed] deadline.”

Id. § 20304(b).

Absent an applicable exception, the

prescribed collection deadline “is noon (in the location in which the ballot is collected)

on the seventh day preceding the date of the regularly scheduled general election for

Federal office.” Id.

USPS’s Final Rule Provides No Viable Process for Respecting

UOCAVA’s Mandates.

On August 26, 2026, USPS published its Final Rule to implement Executive

Order 14,399. Acknowledging that Section 3 of the Executive Order conflicts with

UOCAVA’s mandate to facilitate expedited delivery of UOCAVA ballots, the Final

Rule purports to exempt UOCAVA ballots from its conditions. 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,988.

Under the Final Rule, UOCAVA outgoing and return envelopes formally need not

bear the machine-readable barcodes required for other absentee ballots. Yet USPS

established no processing procedures to ensure outbound UOCAVA ballots are

delivered to voters despite the new delivery restrictions the Final Rule imposes on all

other federal election mail. Nor does USPS have any stated method to ensure that

return ballots from UOCAVA voters will be delivered for tabulation when those

ballots would be rejected for other mail-in voters due to the absence of machinereadable markings on their return envelopes.

Remarkably, USPS took the position that these practical issues of fundamental

importance to UOCAVA voting—which NSL4A and other commenters raised as

concerns in response to USPS’s proposed rule—did not even have to be considered in

the Final Rule or included in the revised Domestic Mail Manual (“DMM”) provisions.

See 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,988 (noting that commenters “asked for more assurances and

safeguards to ensure UOCAVA ballots would not be impacted by the rule, as errors

could occur that would accidentally apply the rule’s standards to UOCAVA ballots”

and further “sought clarification on how the Postal Service would distinguish between

ballots sent pursuant to UOCAVA and other mail-in or absentee ballots”).

“[O]perational changes or service commitments for ballots mailed to and from

military and overseas voters,” USPS responded, “are beyond the scope of this

proceeding and will not be addressed.” Id. at 54,968.

Instead of establishing mail-handling procedures to expedite delivery of

UOCAVA ballots consistent with 52 U.S.C. § 20304, the commentary to the Final

Rule assumes that USPS will be able to identify and exempt many thousands of

individual pieces of outbound and return UOCAVA ballot mail based on the franking

language that exempts the mail from postage requirements, i.e., language on the

envelopes stating ‘‘No Postage Necessary in the U.S. Mail—DMM 703.8.0” or ‘‘U.S.

Postage Paid 39 U.S.C. 3406.’’ 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,988. At the same time, though,

USPS recognizes that its proposed automated reading and sorting technology would

reject UOCAVA envelopes carrying only these envelope markings because the franks

are not machine readable: USPS’s only solution for outgoing ballot mail is to require

that election officials segregate their outbound UOCAVA ballots from other ballots so

that the UOCAVA ballots can be “properly accepted” at the Post Office. Id. New

section 705.24.5.2 of the DMM confirms this reliance on manual sorting, stating that

election officials must present their outbound UOCAVA ballot mail at a USPS facility

and the exempt mail will be “verified by Postal Service employees when presented for

acceptance.” Id. at 54,991. Even more alarming, the Final Rule is entirely silent

about procedures for handling return ballots mailed by UOCAVA voters that are

unacceptable for delivery under the Final Rule’s barcode-and-enrollment procedures.

Events in this case highlight USPS’s disregard for compliance with UOCAVA.

On September 3, 2026, the Government submitted in the District Court below the

Declaration of Steven W. Monteith, the Chief Customer and Marketing Officer and

Executive Vice President of USPS (Document 280-1). Mr. Monteith’s Declaration

addresses the operational steps USPS is taking to implement the Final Rule. It states

without qualification that USPS is implementing a policy under which ballot mail

must “be mailed in an envelope that (a) includes the official Election Mail logo; (b) is

automation compatible; (c) bears a unique IMb with the Delivery Point Zip Code

embedded and a Federal Ballot Mail Service Type Identifier (STID); and (d) has

undergone review by the Postal Service for mailpiece design and barcode placement.”

Id. ¶ 7. Mr. Monteith provided no detail on how the Final Rule’s purported exception

for UOCAVA ballots would be implemented and (like the Government in its stay

application to this Court) evinced no awareness of it. The Government’s utter neglect

of UOCAVA in this case highlights the near certainty that, if the requested stay is

granted, in the November 2026 election USPS will reject UOCAVA ballots it, by law,

must deliver.

ARGUMENT

The Respondent States collectively are home to hundreds of thousands of

UOCAVA voters. For example, in 2024 California reported having 165,341 UOCAVA

voters, Virginia reported 174,315 such voters, and Washington State reported

124,410 such voters. 2024 Report at 210–11. The Government’s Application claims

again and again that the Final Rule is a “modest” mail-handling policy and not a

substantive elections policy. Application at 2, 7, 13, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27. But as

explained below, implementation of the Final Rule would directly, immediately, and

irrevocably interfere with the States’ fulfillment of their obligations to their UOCAVA

voters. The preliminary injunction entered by the District Court is necessary to

prevent this certain harm to the Respondent States and their uniformed service

members and other citizens abroad. The Court should deny the application for a stay.

The Requirements of Section 3 of Executive Order 14,399 and the Final

Rule Conflict with UOCAVA’s Mandates to the States and the

Executive Branch.

The Government denies that any special statutory provisions apply to its

processing of federal ballot mail. “[E]lection-related mail,” the Government asserts,

is legally no different than other mail and thus fully within “Congress’s broad grants

of statutory authority to USPS” to manage and regulate mail delivery. Application

at 19. This is flatly wrong. To the contrary, Section 3 of the Executive Order and the

Final Rule implementing it are irreconcilable with UOCAVA’s specific commands

governing expedited delivery of all properly marked military and overseas ballots.

Section 3 directs that USPS “shall” specify “that all outbound ballot mail must

be mailed” in an envelope that must, among other requirements, be “marked as

Official Election Mail” and “bear[] a unique Intelligent Mail barcode [“IMb”] or

successor USPS technology.” Exec. Order No. 14,399, § 3(b)(i)(A)–(B), 91 Fed. Reg.

17,125, 17,126 (2026). Return ballots mailed by voters must not be delivered to

election officials unless USPS determines the voter is on an approved list as identified

by a machine-readable barcode on the return envelope. See id. § 3(b)(iii); 91 Fed. Reg.

at 54,991 (DMM 705.24.5.3.a).

Under UOCAVA, however, States “shall not refuse to accept and process” an

otherwise valid marked absentee ballot “solely on the basis of” “[r]estrictions on . . .

envelope type.” 52 U.S.C. § 20302(i), (i)(3). The Federal Government, including

USPS, must support the States’ fulfillment of their obligation to accept ballots. Id.

§§ 20301, 20304. These requirements leave no room for a USPS verification standard

that interferes with the delivery of a covered ballot due to the absence of an acceptable

voter barcode.

To the contrary, as this Court recently explained, “UOCAVA

repeatedly presupposes that ballot receipt is a matter of state law.”

Republican Nat’l Comm., 609 U.S. __, 146 S. Ct. 2165, 2173 (2026).

Watson v.

Under Section 3 and DMM 705.24.3.1.c and 705.24.5.1 (governing outbound

mail), a UOCAVA ballot Congress has specifically directed the States to accept

regardless of its envelope type is precisely the kind of mailing that USPS is likely to

reject under the Final Rule. See 52 U.S.C. § 20302(i), (i)(3) (prohibiting refusal to

accept applications based on envelope type).

If these provisions are applied to

military and other covered ballots, then the Final Rule will prevent the States from

satisfying their obligations under UOCAVA and abrogate the Executive Branch’s own

duties under that law.

Unlike the Government’s current Application for a Stay, USPS’s commentary

to its rule at least acknowledges that Section 3 of the Executive Order and the Final

Rule’s ballot-rejection procedures conflict with UOCAVA. USPS purported to resolve

the problem by declaring that the new rule’s provisions “do not apply to ballots

covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.” Ballot

Mail for Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg. 32,915, 32,915–32,916 (June 2, 2026)

(proposed rule). As explained below, though, the actual text of the Final Rule and

revised DMM cannot be harmonized with UOCAVA’s explicit statutory requirement

that States must accept a properly marked UOCAVA ballot regardless of other

envelope features.

Moreover, the Final Rule commentary assumes a wholly

unrealistic process by which UOCAVA outgoing and return ballots would be reviewed

and accepted for delivery by hand, despite not providing any procedure for staffing or

training for such tasks at each individual post office. Against the Final Rule’s general

policy that is intended to lead to automated rejection and non-delivery of certain

ballot mail, USPS has failed to establish any plausibly reliable process for ensuring

that outbound UOCAVA ballots lacking an acceptable IMb barcode are delivered from

election offices to mail-in voters. And there are no procedures at all to prevent

rejection of UOCAVA return mail from voters back to their home election offices.

Specifically, the Final Rule requires that “[o]utbound Federal Ballot Mail must

be mailed in an envelope that . . . [b]ears a unique IMb with the Delivery Point ZIP

Code embedded and a Federal Ballot Mail Service Type Identifier.” 91 Fed. Reg. at

54,990 (amending DMM 705.24.3.1.c). USPS “will review mailings identified as

Outbound Federal Ballot Mail prior to acceptance to evaluate whether the mailing

meets the standards in 24.3.1 and is being sent to individuals who have been enrolled

. . . on the state’s Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” id. at 54,991 (DMM

705.24.5.1)—a review USPS elsewhere describes as “checking the outbound barcode,”

id. at 54,969. Any mailing that does not pass this review “will not be accepted and

will be returned to the authorized ballot mailer.” Id. at 54,991 (DMM 705.24.5.3.a).

Despite all this the Final Rule asserts, without any significant explanation or

procedure, that USPS will correctly identify and exempt outbound UOCAVA mail

that does not contain the IMb based on envelope franking language that states ‘‘No

Postage Necessary in the U.S. Mail—DMM 703.8.0” or ‘‘U.S. Postage Paid 39 U.S.C.

3406.” 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,988.

The Final Rule further provides that States’ return ballots for voters to mail

“must meet” similar barcoding and formatting requirements. Id. (DMM 705.24.3.2

(Return Federal Ballot Mail Envelope Standards) & DMM 705.24.4.2.f (requiring

certification of compliance with standards for return ballots)). USPS will rely on

“mailpiece design review” to clear return ballots. Id. (DMM 705.24.3.2c). Critically,

the Final Rule provides no provision for how postal personnel will handle UOCAVA

return ballots that lack the required barcode.

Again, USPS’s September 3

Declaration on implementation of the Final Rule and the Government’s instant

Application entirely ignore the subject.

USPS’s claimed exemption for UOCAVA ballots is an empty promise. In its

commentary supporting the Final Rule, USPS instructs that outbound ballots “should

be segregated from Outbound Federal Ballot Mail when presented for mailing.” 91

Fed. Reg. at 54,988. USPS further suggests that UOCAVA ballot envelopes somehow

can be singled out for delivery by the presence of unique envelope markings, i.e.,

language on the envelopes stating ‘‘No Postage Necessary in the U.S. Mail—DMM

703.8.0” or ‘‘U.S. Postage Paid 39 U.S.C. 3406.’’ Id. In so doing, USPS implicitly

confirms that its automated technology will not recognize the UOCAVA franking

language that USPS now deems critical—while providing no other mechanism or

safeguards for ensuring delivery of UOCAVA ballots that lack acceptable IMb

barcodes.

While the Final Rule relies on election officials to pre-sort their outbound

UOCAVA mail and on postal workers to manually recognize and correctly deliver

outbound UOCAVA ballots, the Final Rule and its commentary provide no guidance

on how return UOCAVA ballots will be processed. Perhaps if USPS had addressed

the issue, it would have argued that manual inspection of UOCAVA return envelopes

by some postal employee, at some point during their journey, will identify the

presence of the UOCAVA frank on the envelopes so that the ballots can be delivered

timely for tabulation.

But without any provision in the DMM for immediately

inspecting every rejected return ballot to ensure it is not a UOCAVA ballot that must

be delivered in a timely fashion, this is simply speculation.

The Postal Service’s own documents reflect that manual verification of

acceptable UOCAVA mailings will not be workable or timely. USPS’s Inspector

General (among others) has highlighted the inaccuracies and delays inherent in

manual mail processing of the sort USPS appears to contemplate for UOCAVA mail.

With respect to manual package operations, for instance, the Inspector General noted

that “management did not always ensure packages were scanned to capture the

number of mailpieces processed manually,” resulting in inaccurate counts of

manually processed mail. USPS Office of Inspector General, Audit Report: Manual

Mail Processing Efficiency 12 (Sep. 21, 2021), https://perma.cc/6USE-DMJS. Further,

the Inspector General’s report emphasized that manual processing is “less

productive” than automated processing and can hinder “prompt, reliable, and

affordable mail service.” Id. at 1. The Final Rule entirely fails to address how manual

procedures for UOCAVA ballot mail—particularly ones that are not spelled out in the

DMM or any other documents of record—would avoid the difficulties that bedevil

other manually processed mail.

As the Final Rule suggests, USPS’s automated sorting technology operates by

reading barcodes—not by reading the franking language USPS claims will identify

UOCAVA mail.

See 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,988; USPS, Intelligent Mail Barcode,

https://perma.cc/Z3WB-WVZ8 (stating the IMb is “used to sort and track letters, cards

and flats”). A return ballot mailed by a UOCAVA voter in a plain envelope without

an IMb will thus be indistinguishable to USPS’s automated systems from a noncompliant ballot subject to rejection under the Final Rule. USPS has provided no

training protocols, technological solutions, or operational guidance to ensure that

postal workers will recognize UOCAVA ballots without IMbs as exempt and route

them to the appropriate election office. See Comment of National Security Leaders

for America to the United States Postal Service Proposed Rule Amending the

Domestic Mail Manual Regarding the Transmission of Mail-In or Absentee Ballots

for Federal Elections at 4 (July 1, 2026) (“NSL4A Comment”) (noting that “the

Proposed Rule identifies no training program or implementation guidance to ensure

the consistent treatment of UOCAVA ballots”).

The NSL4A Comment specifically raised these issues, warning that because

UOCAVA voting envelopes “would not meet the requirements of proposed rules DMM

24.3 and 24.4 . . . neither the outgoing absentee ballot nor the returned cast ballot

would contain the unique, computer readable code required to enable the USPS to

complete the mailing and receipt of absentee ballots from UOCAVA voters.” NSL4A

Comment at 4. NSL4A further observed that while the identifiers on UOCAVA ballot

envelopes “could identify whether those envelopes are going to and coming from a

UOCAVA voter, they are not machine readable,” meaning that “USPS employees

would need to identify and distinguish UOCAVA ballot materials manually.” Id. And

NSL4A raised the substantial practical constraints USPS would face in uniformly

implementing these practices, noting the challenges of training a massive workforce

of over 624,000 postal service employees who process billions of pieces of mail

annually.

In issuing its Final Rule, USPS did not address, much less resolve, these

critical concerns. Instead, USPS asserted that these plainly relevant issues exceeded

the scope of its rulemaking and no detailed procedures for processing UOCAVA mail

are needed. 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,968. USPS’s lack of a response makes it impossible

to conclude that the Final Rule will be implemented consistent with UOCAVA.

II.

Implementation of the Final Rule Would Produce Chaos in Military

and Diplomatic Voting That Prevents the States from Counting

Ballots of Eligible Voters.

UOCAVA’s statutory deadlines leave no room to repair or revise the untested

manual processing process and unlawful barcode requirement the Final Rule would

in practical effect impose on UOCAVA ballots. The harms from the resulting electionadministration disruption would fall hardest on the voters least equipped to bear it—

service members and their families, diplomatic personnel, and other eligible voters

overseas who cannot appear at a polling place or easily correct an erroneous voter

record from their domestic or overseas assignment, and who have no practical

opportunity to recast or otherwise remedy a ballot rejected under the Final Rule.

These are the very voters whose rights Congress sought to protect by enacting

UOCAVA.

UOCAVA’s Firm Deadlines Do Not Allow for Correction of the

Final Rule’s Inadequate Procedure for Exclusion of UOCAVA

Ballots from the Enrollment-and-Barcode Regime.

As explained above, UOCAVA requires States to transmit ballots to covered

voters no later than September 19, 2026 (45 days before the election per 52 U.S.C.

§ 20302(a)(8)), while continuing to accept valid registration forms and ballot requests

submitted as late as 30 days before that election, id. § 20302(a)(2), and further to

ensure that completed ballots reach election officials by the deadline generally

applicable under State law, id. § 20304(b)(1). Once a ballot is transmitted by State

election officials, military and overseas voters must return it—often across

international mail systems—in sufficient time for it to arrive by Election Day; the

Federal Voting Assistance Program accordingly instructs voters to mail their ballots

back 30 to 35 days before Election Day. FVAP, 2026–27 Voting Assistance Guide 10.

Section 3’s architecture wreaks havoc on that timeline. The Executive Order

provides that a State choosing to submit a list of voters eligible to vote by mail can do

so up to 60 days before the election. Exec. Order § 3(b)(ii), 91 Fed. Reg. at 17,126.

(That date—September 4th—has now passed.) Earlier submission, although

technically permitted, would compound the risk of an incomplete or inaccurate list.

The Final Rule separately requires the State officials enrolling individual voters with

USPS to submit that voter-specific enrollment data “at least 30 days before the date

of the federal election, to the extent practicable, or by the date on which mail-in or

absentee ballots may begin to be mailed under state law,” with supplemental

submissions permitted only “until the last day that ballots may be mailed out . . .

under state law.” 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,991 (DMM 705.24.4.2.d).

The fundamental problem is that, while Congress established early deadlines

for UOCAVA procedures to avoid ballot-processing issues and facilitate overseas

voting, the Executive Order and Final Rule set a highly compressed schedule to force

their new ballot-rejection procedures into the November 2026 election cycle. The

table below illustrates the incompatible schedules imposed on the States by UOCAVA

and the Final Rule.

Days Before

Election

(Date in 2026)

UOCAVA

Section 3 / Final Rule

90 days

(Aug. 5, 2026)

States may notify USPS of intent

to use the mail for federal ballots.

Exec. Order § 3(b)(ii), 91 Fed. Reg.

at 17,126; 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,990

(DMM 705.24.2).

60 days

(Sept. 4, 2026)

States choosing to submit an

eligible-voter list to USPS must do

so. Exec. Order § 3(b)(ii), 91 Fed.

Reg. at 17,126.

The Final Rule’s voter-specific

enrollment deadline (30 days) has

not yet arrived — meaning a

States must transmit ballots ballot UOCAVA requires be

45 days

to UOCAVA voters by this mailed today may not yet carry the

(Sept. 19, 2026)

date. 52 U.S.C. § 20302(a)(8). enrollment data or barcode

Section 3 will require for

acceptance. 91 Fed. Reg. at 54,991

(DMM 705.24.4.2.d).

30 days

(Oct. 4, 2026)

States must accept UOCAVA

registration forms and ballot Final Rule’s deadline for USPS

requests submitted this late. enrollment-data submission. 91

52 U.S.C. § 20302(a)(2).

Fed. Reg. at 54,991 (DMM

705.24.4.2.d). USPS will also

FVAP instructs voters to mail verify barcode/ enrollment before

back completed ballots by accepting Return Federal Ballot

this date. FVAP, 2026–27 Mail. Id. (DMM 705.24.5.1).

Voting Assistance Guide 10.

As the table shows, allowing the Final Rule to take effect for the upcoming

November 2026 elections would oblige the States, along with USPS and thousands of

local election offices, to implement the novel enrollment-and-barcode system—

including its undeveloped exclusion for UOCAVA ballots—exactly when the States

must already be printing, addressing, and transmitting UOCAVA ballots to voters at

duty stations and diplomatic posts around the country and the globe. Cf. Exec. Order

§ 3(d), 91 Fed. Reg. at 17,127 (setting a July 29, 2026, deadline for any final rule). It

is simply unworkable for the States and USPS simultaneously to comply with

UOCAVA and the Final Rule.

Any Errors in a Rushed Rollout of the Final Rule Will Impact

Those Voters Least Able to Correct Them.

As explained above, nearly two million active-duty members, military spouses,

and voting-age dependents are stationed away from their legal voting residence, and

this population moves with a frequency uncommon to civilian voters domiciled in the

United States, often relocating under orders that provide little notice and no latitude

in execution. Even under existing procedures, UOCAVA voters are encouraged to

submit a new Federal Post Card Application (“FPCA”) every January and every time

they move to reduce the possibilities of error and delay.

If the Final Rule is

precipitously implemented for the November 2026 elections, the States will have little

practical ability to educate their military and diplomatic voters stationed outside the

jurisdiction about the applicable UOCAVA procedures, to help these voters navigate

an unfamiliar enrollment process that will be layered atop their existing FPCA

obligations, or to correct registration errors before the relevant cutoff date. These

difficulties are exacerbated by an undisputed reality: Most election jurisdictions

design and print their mail ballot envelopes well in advance of an election, leaving

little or no time to accommodate a late-breaking change in USPS’s treatment of

UOCAVA mail. See Application at 5, 29-30.

Meanwhile, postal employees will be tasked, for the first time and on a

compressed timeline, with manually distinguishing UOCAVA-covered mail from

other mail-in ballots subject to the new barcode-and-enrollment verification standard

by visually inspecting envelopes for the presence of unique UOCAVA frankings. The

inevitable confusion will arise and intensify as UOCAVA’s 45-day transmission

deadline and 30-day registration and ballot-request deadlines approach, leaving no

opportunity for course correction once the rollout begins. A rushed, bifurcated system

administered nationwide across thousands of postal facilities during the run-up to a

federal election is certain to cause grave operational disruption to State voting

procedures and will cause UOCAVA voters to forgo their Constitutional right to vote.

Purcell’s Anti-Disruption Principle Applies with Particular

Force to Military and Overseas Voters, Who Have No

Opportunity to Try Again.

This Court has long cautioned that federal courts should be wary of

contributing to last-minute changes in election rules that risk voter confusion and

disenfranchisement. Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 4–5 (2006) (per curiam); see also

Republican Nat’l Comm. v. Democratic Nat’l Comm., 589 U.S. 423, 424–25 (2020) (per

curiam) (staying alteration of election procedures shortly before an election). The

Purcell principle counsels denying the requested stay.

The District Court’s

preliminary injunction preserves the ballot-mail procedures under which States,

USPS, and voters have operated for decades, whereas allowing implementation of the

Final Rule to go forward would introduce the kind of late-breaking change Purcell

warns against on a nationwide scale, shortly before the November election.

Purcell’s concern has particular force for military and diplomatic personnel and

their families. A domestic voter whose mail ballot is rejected retains some recourse;

she may vote in person, seek a provisional ballot, or return to her local election office

to resolve a registration problem before Election Day. A UOCAVA voter may have

none of these options. She cannot appear at a polling place thousands of miles away,

and once her ballot is transmitted under the schedule UOCAVA requires, see 52

U.S.C. § 20302(a)(8), the calendar ordinarily leaves no time to receive a rejection

notice, obtain a compliant envelope or enrollment, and return a replacement ballot

before its deadline. As the courts of appeals have recognized in analogous contexts,

once a ballot deadline has passed, there is “no do-over.” League of Women Voters of

U.S. v. Newby, 838 F.3d 1, 9 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (quoting League of Women Voters of N.C.

v. North Carolina, 769 F.3d 224, 247 (4th Cir. 2014)); see also Merrill v. Milligan, 142

S. Ct. 879, 880 (2022) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (emphasizing that election officials

and voters alike need stability, not last-minute change, as an election approaches).

For a UOCAVA voter, a mid-cycle change to the rules governing ballot acceptance is

not an inconvenience to be managed. It is the loss of a vote that cannot be recovered.

Implementation of the Final Rule thus risks precisely the harm UOCAVA was

enacted to prevent: States failing to count the votes of military members and

diplomatic personnel serving their country at distant posts, as well as the votes of

their family members, due to mailing obstacles. See H.R. Rep. No. 99-765, at 12

(overseas voters who fail to receive or return their ballots in time are “clearly and

effectively disenfranchised”). Because that harm is concrete, imminent, and beyond

any court’s power to undo after the fact, the District Court properly entered a

preliminary injunction.

CONCLUSION

The application for a stay should be denied.

Respectfully submitted,