The Supreme Court has rejected a petition by the Trump administration to implement changes to the way the U.S. Postal Service handles mail-in ballots for the upcoming 2026 midterm elections, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.”
The 7-2 decision was handed down Monday with little explanation by the court. Writing for the majority, Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson said the administration “is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction” and had failed to articulate a valid reason for seeking emergency relief from the court.
However, in a concurring statement, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he believed there was “a fair prospect” that the final USPS final regulation would be within their legal authority and appeared to cite unreasonably short timelines imposed on states and his primary reason for denying the stay.
“But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious and in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections,” wrote Kavanaugh.
The executive order would have tasked the USPS with verifying voter citizenship and the validating ballot materials. The order would have created a barcode tracking system for mail ballot envelopes and “State Citizenship Lists” compiled by the Department of Homeland Security.
The order was quickly challenged by states and voting rights organizations, who argued the executive branch had no constitutional authority to dictate how they maintained their voter rolls.
The White House has justified the order by claiming the federal government has “an unavoidable duty” under Article II of the Constitution to maintain confidence in election outcomes by preventing violations of criminal law, including noncitizen voting.
Lower courts disagreed, blocking the executive order from being put in place before November. The petition to the Supreme Court represented the administration’s best and final hope for judicial relief.
As the administration fought the matter in courts, it moved ahead finalizing the USPS rule. A whistleblower complaint alleged that a “rushed” effort by the White House and U.S. Postal Service to install three new restrictive IT systems meant to verify citizenship that could potentially deny thousands of mail-in ballots if the federal government disagrees with states on a voter or ballot’s eligibility.
While Jackson and Kavanaugh’s rationale took up less than half a page, a dissenting opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and signed by Justice Clarence Thomas was more than 7 pages long.
Alito wrote that he would have granted the Trump administration their request for a stay, allowing the order to be implemented in time for the 2026 elections. He said states and organizations suing the government lacked standing, and dismissed their concerns that implementing the USPS order ahead of the 2026 elections would thwart their ability to educate voters about mail-in voting, calling them “abstract social interests.”
Ahead of the decision, David Becker, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Integrity and Research, told reporters that he doubted members of the Supreme Court majority “want to own the chaos that would ensure” as the USPS, states and voters attempt to navigate changes put in place just months before elections and after many states have begun sending out ballots that do not comply with the proposed rules.
He also said that it would be in line with previous Supreme Court decisions that have recognized state supremacy when it comes to specific election administration authorities, like where and how their citizens vote.
“When they consider issues related to the administration of elections, the casting and counting of ballots, they have sided with the states every time,” said Becker.
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The Supreme Court dismissed one of two lawsuits blocking the Trump administration from implementing changes to U.S. Postal Service regulations regarding mail-in ballots, saying that states lacked standing because they could not prove that the regulations would cause “concrete harm.”
California and 23 other states sued the federal government after a White House executive order directed USPS to begin creating “State Citizenship Lists” for each state, consisting of voters who, according to federal data, are eligible to receive mail-in ballots.
The order states that the lists will be updated and transmitted to states 60 days before the election, and states that “An individual’s identification on the State Citizenship List does not indicate that the individual has been properly registered to vote in the State” and that “there may be State laws, not reflected in the State Citizenship List, that preclude voter registration, or the individual may choose not to be registered.”
That provision was thrown out by two federal courts, who found them unconstitutional and likely to result in the federal government intruding on the constitutional rights of states to run their elections.
But the Supreme Court’s conservative majority voted 6-3 to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that states have no standing to sue because “The Order is an internal directive from the President to his subordinates mandating that certain agencies pursue certain policies” and the order “neither requires nor forbids anything of anyone outside the executive branch.”
Because the section of the order is prefaced to say that the Secretary of Homeland Security will transmit the lists “to the extent feasible and consistent with applicable law,” the majority said the claims of harm by states are, at this point, entirely speculative.
“The true ‘source of any injury’ to the States would be the downstream action that the Secretary ‘might take in the future’ to implement” the USPS sections,” the court wrote. “Emphasis on might.”
At the same time, another section directs the Department of Justice to prioritize investigation and prosecution of state and local election officials who “knowingly” allow instances of non-citizen voting.
The majority argued the DOJ directive was internal guidance that neither regulated states’ voter registration nor limited states’ authority to set their own election rules. Since it only prioritized enforcement of existing laws, the court said it did “nothing” to states.
“The States lack standing to challenge for much the same reason: It does nothing to them,” the majority wrote. “This provision directs the Attorney General to ‘prioritize’ the investigation and prosecution of those who violate existing federal laws by issuing ballots to ineligible voters.”
The USPS regulations remain blocked under a separate injunction issued by federal court in Massachusetts, but the ruling demonstrates there are major differences between the Supreme Court majority and lower federal courts on the Trump administration’s years-long effort to assert more federal control over elections. On Friday, USPS moved to finalize the new regulations despite the nationwide injunction.
The three remaining liberal justices – Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Kentaji Brown Jackson – laid out their opposition to the ruling across two dissenting opinions. In one, Sotomayor and Kagan wrote that the majority’s decision “merely postpones adjudication” and does not address or rule in favor of the administration on many substantive constitutional questions.
Both would have granted relief to the states, writing that “a commonsense reading of the executive order, corroborated by the government’s own representations, make clear that the respondent states face a sufficiently concrete and imminent injury.”
Sotomayor also expressed incredulity at the majority’s view that the order’s sections on USPS state citizenship lists and directing DOJ to prosecute election officials were unrelated or nonthreatening.
“To pretend that the lists assembled [in one section] bear no relation to the prosecutions directed by [the second section] is to ignore the structure of the Executive Order and the Government’s words alike,” she wrote. “As this Court has long recognized, ‘[p]eople do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.”
Justice Jackson, in her own dissent, was even blunter.
“The District Court held that the President’s Order is unlawful, the Government does not defend the lawfulness of the Order before this Court, and no judge or Justice has held (or holds today) that the Order comports with the Constitution,” wrote Jackson. “Still, the Court sees fit to grant the Government equitable relief to proceed with implementing the challenged Order on the grounds that, because the Government had not yet issued a final rule at the time the complaint was filed, the Plaintiff States lacked a concrete injury for Article III purposes.”
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In a late Friday night posting to the Federal Register, the U.S. Postal Service said it is finalizing new regulations that would give the federal government potentially vast powers to control mail-in ballots for voters.
The changes are part of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March, which directed USPS to develop lists of residents “eligible” for mail-in voting — standards that would be defined by the federal government.
The U.S. Constitution vests states and Congress with the power to regulate elections, and the USPS rules have already been struck down by multiple lower courts. But as the White House appeals to the Supreme Court to reverse those decisions, it is still moving ahead in finalizing the regulations, though USPS says it will not move to implement them until after the Supreme Court rules.
But USPS said it must begin moving forward now in order to ensure the changes are in place by the mid-term elections.
“To ensure the faithful execution of federal law in connection with federal elections, this rule has an immediate effective date,” USPS wrote. “Delaying the effective date would jeopardize implementation of this rule in time for the 2026 general election, which will be held on November 3, 2026.”
According to the notice, USPS has received an astonishing 200,000 comments from the public in response to the proposed rule. It doesn’t provide a breakdown of how many comments were in support or opposition.
By the agency’s own admission, the vast majority of supportive comments appear to argue that the rules would help with the perception among voters that fraud is a “significant problem.” Phrases like “strengthens confidence” and “reduce uncertainty” are peppered throughout the descriptions.
But no credible evidence of coordinated mail-in voter fraud is presented, and Trump and his allies have been the primary force in American politics spreading the perception that voter fraud by noncitizens, dead people and Democrats is rampant. Courts, post-election audits and independent experts have repeatedly debunked these arguments.
“Whether or not voter fraud is common or uncommon, the Postal Service has the legal authority to take the measures in this rule to facilitate enforcement of federal law, reduce the risk of fraud, and help protect the integrity of federal elections,” the notice stated.
According to the notice, the comments in opposition pointed out that two courts have already blocked the White House’s USPS rules, finding them unconstitutional. Others expressed concerns that the Postal Service “would refuse to accept certain ballots for federal elections that states tender without satisfying the data-entry obligations that the rule would impose,” echoing concerns that election experts have conveyed to CyberScoop in interviews.
The notice also dismisses comments “influenced by partisan political speculation,” that include “conjecture about the underlying intent” of the order, its impact on voter turnout and elections.
“Such remarks are speculative and exceed the scope of this proceeding,” USPS wrote in its notice. “In any event … this rule does not—nor is it intended to—facilitate any form of voter suppression, affect election outcomes, or target particular demographics, districts, or states.”
Last week the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, which ruled against the administration’s USPS order in an ongoing lawsuit brought by states and voter groups, took the unusual step of issuing a second, separate injunction against the USPS rules. It’s not clear whether the Supreme Court will address both injunctions in the same ruling or separately ahead of election day in November.
“The court has already answered and will again resolve the question clearly and affirmatively,” Judge Indira Talwani wrote when issuing the second injunction. “The executive branch has no authority to regulate elections.”
Some voting groups quickly moved to condemn the Friday night posting, saying it will confuse voters about a state-led voting process that is, as of today, still the law of the land.
“For the 2026 election, voters can continue to rely on the voting rules established by their state unless and until a court orders otherwise,” said Michael McNulty, senior policy director at the nonprofit Issue One. “Yet, because the Trump administration continues its attempts to undermine trust in an effort to centralize control of elections, we all must remain vigilant and continue to build trust in our election system.”
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