Supreme Court rules Trump’s mail-in voting restrictions can stay, for now, before fast-approaching midterms

The Supreme Court will let Donald Trump implement a sweeping executive order for new mail-in voting rules that could significantly restrict voters’ access to ballots in high-stakes midterm elections this fall.

Federal courts have repeatedly blocked the U.S. Postal Service from further implementing Trump’s executive order that sought to create a national voter registration list that would be used to decide who is eligible to cast a ballot.

Trump’s order would also force states to add barcodes to ballots and rely on the administration’s voter lists compiled by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. On August 21, the U.S. Postal Service published its new certification requirements, as per Trump’s order. Those changes could not go into effect until federal courts lifted an injunction against them.

Monday’s 6-3 order — with the court’s liberal justices dissenting — appears to leave some room for legal challenges to continue, which could further slow or block Trump’s order altogether with critical registration and ballot deadlines approaching before Election Day. The issue could end up right back at the Supreme Court for oral arguments this year or in 2027.

Dozens of election officials and voting rights groups have warned that Trump’s order would cause chaos before midterms without enough time to ensure eligible voters weren’t wrongly removed from voter rolls — errors that could disenfranchise millions of Americans.

“The consequences of allowing such transformative changes to take effect so close to this fall’s elections would be extreme,” nearly two dozen state attorneys general wrote to the court earlier this month.

“Because of the high risk of errors and the limited window for correcting mistakes, many of the millions of voters who rely on mail voting — especially voters with disabilities and those in rural areas — would likely be denied mail ballots and, as a result, disenfranchised,” they added.

A bipartisan coalition of 118 current and former election officials tasked with running the nation’s elections said the results will be “chaos.” And a group of 53 judges — most of whom were appointed by Republicans — called Trump’s order “a recipe for confusion among voters” that will “strain” election officials.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani previously rejected the government’s argument that courts cannot rule on the legality of the new Postal Service process before it’s finalized, stating that it would be “prudent” to step in now with “millions of citizens who rely on mail voting” needing “clarity as to how or whether they will vote in November,” she wrote earlier this month.

Trump’s executive order, even if it hasn’t been implemented, “is thus causing irreparable harm” to states and voting rights groups “ through the confusion it has engendered as to how they may vote in the fast-approaching midterm elections,” Talwani wrote.

The Supreme Court appeared to partially agree, saying that Trump’s executive order itself is not causing any harm to the states that sued to stop it, and any further injunction will “irreparably harm the government if it remains in place while the appellate process runs its course.

But Monday’s decision does not mean that the Trump’s administration of the order will “necessarily be lawful,” the court wrote.

“On that score, time will tell,” the ruling states.

The decision merely postpones a decision on whether to address if Trump’s attempts to “interfere” with elections are lawful, liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan noted in their dissent. But a “common sense” reading of Trump’s executive order “makes clear” that it will cause irreparable harm to the states.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was more to the point. Monday’s decision “needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections,” she wrote.

“States administering elections and the voting public that relies on them to do so deserve clarity, not caginess or confusion,” she wrote.

This is a developing story