SCOTUS Clears Trump Mail Voting Order

The 6-3 ruling lifts an injunction on Trump's mail ballot restrictions ahead of midterms.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled 6-3 on Monday to lift an injunction that had blocked key parts of President Donald Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting. The unsigned order paused a June ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani that prevented the order's implementation in 23 states and Washington, D.C., which had sued to stop it. The court did not rule on whether the executive order is lawful, instead clearing the way for federal agencies to begin acting while leaving the underlying constitutional questions unanswered.

The ruling focused narrowly on whether the states sued prematurely, not on the constitutionality of Trump's order. The majority wrote that when states filed their lawsuit, the order was "not a proposed rule, let alone a final rule," meaning states had not yet suffered the kind of injury required to bring a challenge. SCOTUSblog reports the majority called the DHS citizen-list provision "an internal directive from the President to a subordinate" that does not require states to do anything. The court emphasized that states may challenge the order once federal agencies take concrete steps to implement it.

Trump signed the executive order in March. According to PBS, it directs the Department of Homeland Security to create lists of eligible voters and orders the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on those lists. The USPS released its final implementing rule on Friday, as reported by NPR and Votebeat. NPR reports the rule requires election officials to use specific barcodes on mail ballot envelopes, and Votebeat notes that states using mail ballots would be required to send the federal government a list of all registered voters receiving mail-in and absentee ballots.

The three liberal justices dissented from the ruling. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that the decision "needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections" and described it as part of a "Kafkaesque nightmare" for plaintiffs seeking to bring election-related challenges. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, wrote that the decision "merely postpones adjudication" of whether the president has constitutional or statutory authority to interfere with states' administration of elections. Jackson accused the majority of "taking its eye off the ball" by focusing on a procedural technicality.

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read assured voters that November elections will proceed as planned, calling the ruling "a temporary setback" and saying Oregon's elections are "secure, accurate, and fair." California Governor Gavin Newsom vowed on X that "California WILL SUE again to BLOCK Trump's attack on mail-in voting." New York Attorney General Letitia James called the decision "a painful setback" but said "it will not be the final word." Oregon and Washington, both all-mail voting states, pledged to continue defending their constitutional authority to administer elections.

A separate nationwide injunction issued by Judge Talwani on August 11 remains in effect, blocking the USPS from enforcing the order's tighter rules across all states, according to The Jerusalem Post and Votebeat. NPR reports that the Trump administration plans to ask the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause that ruling if Talwani does not act by Tuesday evening. Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, told Yahoo the case is "just the first inning of a very fast nine-inning game," signaling that further litigation could freeze the federal government's efforts again before November.