The Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s effort to implement new mail-in-ballot rules ahead of midterm elections.
While the Court’s order was unsigned, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence that left room for a Trump admin win in the future. “In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority,” he wrote. “But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from the Court’s opinion, instead arguing that the Court “incorrectly denies the Government’s application for a stay of a universal injunction that bars implementation of a final rule concerning election ballot mail.”
“Some of the plaintiffs lack standing, while the remainder are pursuing a claim that this Court has recently called a ‘Hail Mary pass’ that ‘rarely succeeds.'”
Last week, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a petition to the Supreme Court, “Every day that the district court’s injunction remains in place, more ballots are being sent through the U.S. Mail without the benefits that the Rule provides for election integrity.”
Sauer argued that “regardless of whether voter fraud is common or uncommon,” it is imperative that the Trump administration “enact such safeguards, which ‘encourage[] citizen participation in the democratic process’ by fostering confidence in election outcomes.”
