SCOTUS Rejects Trump Mail Ballot Plan  09/15 06:08

   The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump's bid to 
restrict mail ballots for the midterm elections, capping a flurry of 
last-minute legal action with voting already underway.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald 
Trump's bid to restrict mail ballots for the midterm elections, capping a 
flurry of last-minute legal action with voting already underway.

   The decision allows states to continue sending out mail ballots under the 
same processes they've used for years and have accounted for nearly a third of 
votes cast.

   It represented a stark defeat for Trump on an issue he consistently has 
emphasized as vital to ensuring election integrity even though there is 
virtually no evidence of fraud with mail ballots.

   The Supreme Court majority wrote that the administration's push to implement 
the restrictions this year is likely to lose in court, though the brief 
emergency order didn't detail its reasoning. Two justices, Samuel Alito and 
Clarence Thomas, publicly dissented.

   The Trump administration had asked the justices, once again at the center of 
a roiling political controversy, to clear the way for restrictions before the 
pivotal November contests for control of Congress.

   Alito wrote in his dissent that the Postal Service "has broad authority to 
regulate the mail" and likely does have the power to enforce Trump's 
restrictions.

   Justice Brett Kavanaugh, meanwhile, agreed that the restrictions should not 
go into effect for the midterms but indicated he might rule in favor of the 
Trump administration if the issue comes back before the court at a later time.

   Mail ballots are already being sent to voters

   Election officials have said there was simply no way to carry out a complete 
overhaul in the weeks before the midterms. Indeed, Alabama, North Carolina and 
Wisconsin began sending mail ballots to voters over the past week while the new 
system was still not active.

   The Trump administration plan would require states to adopt a uniform 
envelope style and submit lists of eligible voters to an online portal. The 
Postal Service could refuse to deliver ballots to states that didn't comply.

   The administration's efforts had the potential to be especially disruptive 
in states that send out ballots entirely by mail. Washington's Secretary of 
State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, said the decision means work "to carry out a 
safe, secure, and accurate election" can continue "without having to upend our 
election processes to meet unrealistic ballot mail requirements."

   In Arizona, another largely vote-by-mail state, Democratic Secretary of 
State Adrian Fontes said "it is crucial for us to continue rejecting the notion 
that access and security are mutually exclusive when it comes to running strong 
elections."

   Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican serving as the state's chief 
election officer, said on social media that the Supreme Court's decision means 
"Utahns can have confidence that the 2026 election will proceed as normal."

   The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to 
requests for comment, but have in the past framed the restrictions as 
commonsense changes aimed at keeping elections secure.

   State officials and voting rights groups pushed back

   Democratic state officials and voting rights groups challenged the 
restrictions in court, arguing that the president has no constitutional 
authority to set election rules that would "virtually eliminate mail voting on 
the eve of a major election."

   A whistleblower report, meanwhile, said the postal system's requirements 
could lead to millions of mail ballots never being sent, because problems with 
the not-yet-operational portal meant a single bar code error could result in an 
entire batch of ballots being tossed out.

   Some states don't have the infrastructure to quickly pivot back to in-person 
voting, according to court documents.

   The League of Women Voters, a plaintiff in the case, called the proposed 
restrictions "an extraordinary attempt to interfere with voting" and said it 
would have thrown elections into chaos. "Voters should never be caught in the 
middle of a political power warfare," said CEO Celina Stewart.

   Lower courts agreed to block Trump's plan, including a preliminary 
injunction issued by a judge nominated by the president.

   But the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that 
federal control of the Postal Service allows them to set rules for mail ballot 
handling and that compliance was possible.

   The federal government won an early procedural decision at the Supreme 
Court, but the justices pointedly did not decide the legality of the plan.

   Trump has long opposed mail voting and falsely blamed it for his 2020 
election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, even though he often uses that method to 
cast his own ballot, including as recently as this year.

   A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail 
voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail 
ballots cast.