US Supreme Court revives Trump mail voting order before midterms

Washington,UPDATED: Aug 25, 2026 10:14 IST

The US Supreme Court's decision allowing President Donald Trump's order restricting mail voting to move ahead for now has cast fresh uncertainty over a voting method used by nearly one-third of the country, even though it may not immediately change any election procedure for the November midterms.

The court did not say the order is legal. In an unsigned ruling on Monday, it said it was too early for Democratic-led states to challenge the measure in June, when they had persuaded a federal judge in Boston to freeze it for the November election. That has effectively reset the legal fight just as early voting preparations are already under way, with the first ballots due to be sent to overseas and military voters in North Carolina on September 4.

A separate injunction that stops the US Postal Service from making changes to comply with Trump's directive is still in place. But the administration moved late on Monday to get that order lifted, and the Postal Service has already posted new rules that would take effect on Tuesday if the legal route is cleared.

The new rule requires specific formatting for envelopes carrying mail ballots, which could force some jurisdictions to redesign them completely. It also requires states to use an electronic system to tell the Postal Service who is voting by mail. If states do not comply, their mail ballots will not be sent.

Critics said the prospect of such sweeping changes within days was unworkable. In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the decision "needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections". David Becker, executive director of the Centre for Election Innovation & Research, said the majority "seemed to create complete chaos leading up to the midterm elections" and that it would be "impossible" for states to comply this late.

Election officials on the ground said the timeline leaves little room for any changes. Jesse Salinas, registrar of Yolo County in California and president of the state's association of election officers, said ballots in California start going out in 11 days and his county has already printed its envelopes. "You look at the timeline, and it's a bit chaotic," Salinas said, adding that he does not know exactly which envelope designs meet the new rules. He rejected the idea of a last-minute overhaul, saying, "The capacity to do that, I just don't see it."

Tammy Patrick, chief programme officer at the Elections Centre, which represents 2,500 election officers, said no state could comply with the rule and that none of the officials she had spoken to had even tried. "There isn't a single state that does their elections in a way that this postal rule lays out," Patrick said. "There has been this assumption that this is not going to happen because it could not happen the way it's laid out, because no one does it this way."

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar also questioned how the system could be built in time. In Nevada, every registered voter gets a mail ballot, and Aguilar said the post office had already misdelivered three dozen mail ballots from the state's June primary. "They're going to come in within seven days and build a massive database that has 100 per cent accuracy?" Aguilar said. "It is impossible to implement this system in that time frame."

Trump has long tried to sharply limit voting by mail, even though he has repeatedly voted that way himself. He falsely blamed his 2020 defeat on mail voting and promoted conspiracy theories about that election. Judges blocked him last year from creating new voting restrictions through executive order, and he issued the latest order only after his bill to change voting procedures stalled in the Senate amid Democratic opposition.

The Election Assistance Commission said 29 per cent of voters in 2024 cast their ballots by mail. Democrats are more likely to use mail voting than Republicans, reflecting how the issue has become polarised since Trump began attacking it in 2020. Even so, legal experts said the order is unlikely to be implemented because the Constitution gives states, and in federal elections Congress, authority over voting rules, not the president.

Those experts noted that the Supreme Court itself has not decided whether Trump's order is constitutional. So far, administration wins have come only from arguments that it is too early to judge the measure. With the final rule published on Friday night, opponents are already considering fresh lawsuits.

More court action is expected in the coming days. Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer who co-wrote a book challenging Trump's 2020 election claims, said he expected the next round of litigation to stop the order from being applied in November. UCLA law professor Rick Hasen said after the ruling, "This doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of November." Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller said the court had still ensured a difficult legal fight close to the election. "It puts courts in a terrible place, because whatever happens is super close to the election," Muller said. "If it permits it, it creates super disruption for the states. If it suspends it, it visibly angers the administration." Hasen added, "Both legal and practical reasons make this practically impossible to enforce," referring to Trump's mail voting order.

Patrick said local election officials, many of whom work in scattered offices and some without even a full-time employee, have been left shaken by the uncertainty. "Election officials just feel like punching bags at this moment because they plan one way of conducting their elections, and have contingency plans if a fire breaks out, or one location loses power," she said. "But how do you plan for something that affects one-third, one half, or all of your voters?" For now, the ruling has not settled the legality of the order, but it has deepened uncertainty around mail voting just as states prepare to send out ballots for the November election.

With PTI Inputs

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