A federal judge in Boston has once again blocked the Trump administration from enforcing new U.S. Postal Service rules that would restrict how states handle mail-in ballots, siding with two dozen Democratic state attorneys general just days before the first ballots for the November midterms are due to go out.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a 14-day temporary restraining order Thursday freezing the USPS's "Ballot Mail for Federal Elections" final rule, which the agency published in the Federal Register just a day earlier. The rule would have barred the Postal Service from delivering mail ballots unless states first submitted ballot envelope designs — carrying a specific logo and a barcode embedded with a voter's ZIP code — for advance federal approval, and uploaded lists of eligible mail voters into a USPS-run electronic portal.

It is the second time in weeks that Talwani has halted the rule. Her order came just four days after the Supreme Court, over the dissent of its three liberal justices, ruled that an earlier lawsuit challenging Trump's underlying mail-voting executive order had been filed prematurely and lifted a prior injunction — a decision the justices explicitly stopped short of ruling on the merits of. That opening let the administration move forward with the finalized USPS rule this week, prompting the new emergency lawsuit.

Talwani found the administration had presented no evidence of fraudulent mail voting to justify the rule, which she said likely violates the Constitution's grant of election authority to the states and was probably adopted unlawfully. Roughly a third of American voters cast ballots by mail, and election officials told the court there was not enough time before Election Day to comply with the new federal sign-off requirements.

"This rule is a clear attempt by the federal government to interfere in elections it has no power to control. Today, a federal court halted it before this administration could wreak havoc on our elections," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement after the ruling.

James was one of 24 state attorneys general who filed suit this week arguing that only Congress and the states — not the president — have constitutional authority to set the rules for federal elections. The coalition's filing came directly in response to the finalized USPS rule, which built on an executive order Trump signed earlier this year targeting mail voting.

The Trump administration has not yet filed a notice of appeal, but legal observers expect the ruling to be challenged quickly, potentially sending the fight back up toward the Supreme Court for a second time. Talwani's order buys states roughly two weeks of certainty, but with ballots for the November 3 midterms set to start going out within days in several states, election officials are bracing for the possibility that the rules could change again before voters ever see an envelope.