(This story has been updated to include additional information)
Oregon sued the United States Postal Service Aug. 26 over changes to USPS rules on mail-in voting directed by an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit comes two days after a U.S. Supreme Court emergency order allowing Trump’s executive order to be carried out and one day after Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read issued a directive to county elections officials to continue following the states’ existing laws.
“The November election is already underway. Now is not the time to change the rules,” Read said in an Aug. 26 statement on the lawsuit. “The USPS rule, like the executive order it arises from, is a clear attempt to make it harder for Americans to vote and undermine free, fair elections. It won’t work.”
In response to the Supreme Court’s order, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield promised to file a lawsuit quickly to challenge any unconstitutional elements of the USPS rules.
In its majority opinion, the Supreme Court agreed with arguments from the Trump administration that an earlier lawsuit from Oregon and other states had been filed too early because the order had not yet been implemented.
With the new lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts and is joined by 23 other states and Washington, D.C., the states take issue with steps to put the order in place: a final rule released Aug. 21 by USPS.
Trump’s order directed states to send USPS lists of voters who should receive mail-in ballots and would limit ballots from being delivered only to the people on the list. It also sets specific requirements for the envelopes ballots must be sent in.
The Supreme Court’s order centered on the timing of the states’ earlier lawsuit, not the merits, Rayfield told reporters Aug. 26, which is why it was important to file another lawsuit challenging the USPS rule itself.
Rayfield said he expects a ruling “in the near future” to keep the order blocked and protect Oregon’s elections.
Mail-in voting will be made more difficult or fully prevented in the Nov. 3 election without a judge pausing the implementation of the new changes, Oregon and the other states said in the complaint.
The USPS rule “introduces chaos as the 2026 midterm elections approach, imposing significant financial and administrative burdens” on the states’ elections systems, they argued.
The states said the new rule violates the Constitution in multiple ways, including by overriding state authority on elections, adding new functions to the USPS and bypassing its existing procedural requirements. The collection of voter information is also is in violation of the Privacy Act and the rule is incongruent with federal law on voting rights, they claimed.
Complying with the new rule would be a significant burden on elections workers and cause confusion for voters, the complaint reads.
“The Constitution is clear: no President has the authority to take over or interfere with any state’s elections,” Rayfield said in a statement on the new lawsuit. “We’re not going to let Donald Trump dictate who gets to vote, and we’re not going to let him put the Postal Service between Oregon voters and their ballots.”
Oregon voters will get to vote by mail in the upcoming election, he said.
Gov. Tina Kotek issued a statement in support of the lawsuit and Oregon’s election authority, saying state leaders are working to defend the right to vote.
“In Oregon, we uplift the right to vote and have worked hard to strengthen and expand our system to ensure everyone has a voice and that every election is safe and secure,” Kotek said.
Anastasia Mason covers state government for the Statesman Journal. Reach her at acmason@statesmanjournal.com or 971-208-5615.
