The Supreme Court has just blocked former President Trump's administration from imposing strict new rules on mail-in voting, just weeks before the midterm elections.
In a 7-2 decision, with conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting, the court backed a lower court's order that prevented the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from implementing changes that would have limited who could receive a mail-in ballot for the November vote. The proposed rule would have required states to provide voter lists to the USPS, which would then verify that ballots were only sent to individuals on those lists. Typically, the USPS doesn't play this kind of role in elections.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a concurring opinion joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, stated that the government was unlikely to win its challenge to the initial injunction. He added that while the final rule might fall within the USPS's authority, applying it to the 2026 elections would be "arbitrary and capricious" due to insufficient time for election officials to implement it.
This ruling represents a significant setback for Trump, who has frequently and baselessly claimed that mail-in voting leads to election fraud. It's the latest in a series of legal defeats for the former president and his administration as they've sought to cast doubt on the integrity of U.S. elections. Voting by mail has already commenced in several states, further complicating the potential implementation of Trump's plan.
Nevada's Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar, celebrated the decision, stating, "Today, Donald Trump lost another battle in his unconstitutional war to choose his own voters, and the American people are winners." He emphasized that elections belong to the people, not to any single individual in Washington.
The fight over mail-in voting rules began earlier this year when Trump signed an executive order requiring states to send USPS lists of voters eligible for mail-in ballots. The USPS could have then refused to deliver ballots not on these lists or those not meeting new requirements for barcodes and envelopes. Many provisions of this order were quickly blocked by federal courts before the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court.
Adding another layer to the controversy, a USPS whistleblower recently claimed that the online portal for the new rules was put together hastily, lacking the necessary care for such a critical system. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who revealed the whistleblower's concerns, wrote to the postmaster general, arguing that the USPS lacks the capability to implement the order without jeopardizing citizens' voting rights.
