New Delhi, July 19 -- WASHINGTON - Election officials in more than two dozen states woke Friday to a sharply altered legal landscape after a federal appeals court unanimously overturned a lower court order that had shielded their mail-voting procedures from a Trump administration rule tying ballot delivery to compliance with new postal requirements.

The three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled late Thursday that a Texas district court had overstepped when it blocked a Postal Service directive requiring states to hand over voter rolls and mark each mail ballot with a serialized tracking barcode before USPS would agree to carry them. The ruling restores the directive's reach in most...