Attorneys for President Donald Trump are pressing the Supreme Court to clear the way for an executive order tightening restrictions on mail-in voting, even as election officials and voting-rights advocates warn it could disrupt the November midterm elections.
The Trump administration on Sunday asked the justices to pause a lower court ruling that stopped new US Postal Service rules from taking effect before the midterms. It marks the third time the administration has turned to the Supreme Court in the dispute.
The USPS changes, developed in response to Trump’s March executive order, would permit the Postal Service to “check” mail-in ballots against a centralized list of registered voters in each state. The rules would also allow USPS to ostensibly reject ballots from voters whose names do not appear in the database.
Solicitor General D John Sauer sharply criticized the preliminary injunction issued Friday by US District Judge Indira Talwani, calling it “baseless” and arguing that it could create even more uncertainty for voters.
“Each day the injunction is in place risks sowing confusion and chaos because the injunction makes those preparatory steps voluntary, rather than mandatory,” Sauer told the Supreme Court.
Opponents of the policy say the new USPS mail-in ballot rules ordered by Trump — particularly with implementation coming so close to Election Day — could trigger widespread confusion and potentially disenfranchise millions of Americans who vote by mail.
Demonstrators attend a “Defend the Vote” rally in Washington, DC. Trump has pushed to impose tighter controls on mail-in voting as part of a broader effort to expand federal authority over elections.
A voter drops off a ballot in Washington, DC. Trump is asking the Supreme Court to suspend a lower court order that blocked his new mail-in voting restrictions ahead of the November midterms.
Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and his colleagues attend Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in 2025
The eleventh-hour rules sparked fierce backlash from Democrats and from many outside observers, who have objected to the narrow window states would have to comply with the directive, as well as broader concerns about the executive branch attempting to amass control of a process that has long been controlled by the states.
Roughly one-third of US voters cast their ballots by mail, underscoring the widespread potential impact of Supreme Court action.
The new rules also come as many states have sent, or are preparing to send out mail-in ballots to tens of thousands of registered voters.
North Carolina did so last week, the first in the US to do so, and six other states will begin sending their mail-in ballots out later this week or next.
USPS ‘has no authority in the Constitution or federal law over how states administer mail voting,’ Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement.
The president ‘cannot order the Postal Service to create a disruptive new bureaucracy that will throw the election into chaos and disenfranchise untold numbers of voters,’ she added.
‘I have not been an election alarmist, but I believe the Supreme Court’s decision on mail-in voting may be the biggest constitutional threat ever,’ John Yarmuth, a former US lawmaker and Kentucky Democrat, said on social media of the proposed changes.
‘If the court allows the Postal Service to decide who votes, the constitution is dead,’ he said. ‘Nothing it says will ever be relevant again.’
Others cited concerns about the operational efficacy of the USPS system to verify the ballots in question.
A whistleblower report last week cited detailed problems with ‘every stage’ of the US Postal Service’s effort to build out the new technical system to scan mail-in ballots.
Federal officials acknowledged in court earlier this month that they were not sure whether the USPS system was operational.
Trump administration officials, meanwhile, have also sought to use the fast-approaching midterm deadlines to its advantage in seeking emergency relief from the high court.
Sauer argued Sunday that the best way for the Supreme Court to alleviate concerns about new directives is for it to grant an ‘immediate’ pause to the lower court order- which Sauer argued would remove an ‘improper cloud of uncertainty’ created by the court fights, and make clear to states that they must comply with the rules.
It’s unclear whether justices will allow such sweeping changes to be made with less than 60 days before the November elections.
Still, the high court has green-lit other changes, including approving a GOP-led effort for states to redraw congressional maps, earlier this year – much later than many court-watchers had expected.
The eleventh-hour bid comes as Trump has sought to assert more federal control over elections, and to limit mail-in voting, despite widespread consensus that the process is safe.
Trump, who has often used mail-in voting to cast his own ballots, sparked criticism earlier this year after he suggested on former deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino’s podcast that Republicans should ‘nationalize’ the elections.
