Supreme Court Blocks Trump's Bid to Restrict Mail-In Voting Ahead of Midterms

The US Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration's attempt to impose strict new restrictions on mail-in voting just weeks before the November midterm elections. In a 7-2 decision, with conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting, the court upheld a lower court's injunction preventing the US Postal Service from enforcing rules on who can receive mail-in ballots.

The blocked rule would have required states to submit lists of eligible voters to USPS, which would then confirm ballots were only sent to people on those lists — a role the Postal Service does not normally perform.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing a concurring opinion joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the government was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the injunction. He noted the final rule might fall within USPS's statutory authority in principle, but applying it to the 2026 elections would be arbitrary, since state and local election officials lack sufficient time to implement it. Mail-in voting has already begun in some states, adding further difficulty to any last-minute changes.

Background of the dispute

The fight began in March, when President Trump signed an executive order on citizenship verification and election integrity, demanding states send USPS lists of mail-in voters. Under the order, USPS could refuse to deliver ballots to voters not on the lists or that failed to meet new barcode and envelope requirements. Federal courts quickly blocked most provisions before the administration appealed to the Supreme Court in July, when the conservative majority allowed the rules to proceed on procedural grounds, ruling that challengers lacked standing since the rules hadn't yet taken effect.

Afterward, a USPS whistleblower alleged the online portal built for the new rules was hastily assembled without proper care, a claim disclosed by Senator Richard Blumenthal in a letter to the postmaster general. Trump has long claimed, without evidence, that mail-in voting enables fraud. The White House and USPS did not respond to requests for comment on the ruling.