Supreme Court Clears Trump Mail Voting Order

Justices lift an injunction on Trump's mail voting order, but nationwide USPS block remains.

The Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority cleared the way for President Donald Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting, at least temporarily. The unsigned ruling paused a June injunction by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani that had blocked key provisions of the order in 23 states and Washington, D.C. The justices concluded the states' lawsuit was premature because federal agencies had not yet finalized implementation plans when they sued. The court noted its decision "does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful," adding, "On that score, time will tell."

Trump signed the executive order in March. It directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile state-by-state lists of adult U.S. citizens and instructs the attorney general to prioritize prosecutions of state and local election officials who issue ballots to ineligible voters. The order also requires the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to voters on approved state lists. PBS reports the order calls on USPS to create lists of eligible voters and deliver mail ballots only to people on those lists. A dozen Republican-leaning states supported the federal government's appeal.

Despite Monday's ruling, a separate nationwide injunction remains in place blocking the Postal Service from implementing the order. On August 11, Judge Talwani issued a separate ruling in a case brought by voting-rights groups including the ACLU and the League of Women Voters, blocking USPS directives nationwide. According to CNN, the USPS final rule published last week requires state and local election officials to upload names and addresses of every mail-ballot recipient to a Postal Service portal before ballots are sent. Votebeat reports USPS stated it will not implement the rule before the midterms without federal court approval.

All three liberal justices dissented. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the majority of "taking its eye off the ball" and missing what she called the government's objective: "to secure our imprimatur for its effort to foment chaos ahead of the November elections." Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, wrote that the ruling "does not address whether the President's attempts to interfere with States' administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful." Jackson warned that under the majority's reasoning, election-related claims could be deemed filed both "too late" and "too early," a situation she called a "Kafkaesque nightmare."

Democratic officials in the suing states pledged to return to court. New York Attorney General Letitia James called the decision "a painful setback" but said it "will not be the final word." California Governor Gavin Newsom vowed to file a new lawsuit, stating California will "sue again to block these Orwellian rules." Oregon officials struck a similar tone, with Secretary of State Tobias Read calling the ruling "a temporary setback" and Attorney General Dan Rayfield declaring, "This fight is far from over." The states argue the Constitution gives states and Congress, not the president, the power to run elections.

With the November 3 election less than 80 days away, significant practical hurdles remain. NPR reports mail-in voting begins in some states just weeks before Election Day. CNN notes states like North Carolina are supposed to start mailing ballots at the end of the following week. Vox reports many states have already purchased envelopes that do not comply with the new federal design requirements. According to PBS, about 30% of all ballots were cast by mail in the 2024 presidential election. A 2025 Brookings Institution study cited by PBS found only about four cases of fraud out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.