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Confirmed
In Short: The Supreme Court has blocked President Trump's plan to restrict voting by mail, leaving in place a judge's order.
The Supreme Court has blocked President Trump's plan to restrict voting by mail, ruling it is too late to impose new postal service rules for the November election.
The justices left in place a judge’s order that prevents the U.S. Postal Service from implementing new rules that would have restricted voter mail-in ballots.
The Trump administration had argued that the federal government would be seriously harmed by voter fraud if it did not impose such restrictions.
However, a federal judge had already halted the plan nationwide, finding that the Trump administration had presented no evidence of widespread fraud, while the states had presented ample evidence that implementing such a system on a fast timeline posed tremendous risk.
The decision came after the court twice last week ruled against Republicans by declining to revive a new congressional map that would have eliminated one of two Democratic-held districts.
Election law experts noted that the court has shown limits to how receptive it is to more extreme requests that destabilize the electoral process.
In both instances, the court said it would not countenance such actions, signaling a potential resistance to last-minute efforts to change election rules heading into the midterms.
The Missouri Supreme Court faulted Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins for delaying a decision on whether the new map could be challenged, ultimately finding him in contempt for defying its ruling in favor of plaintiffs.
Hoskins, a Republican, said he would keep using the congressional districts redrawn last year, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision that left standing a state Supreme Court order requiring Missouri to use its old districts instead.
The court’s decision on Monday night blocked Trump’s plan to exert federal control over mail-in ballots via a Postal Service regulation.
The court’s conservative majority, often ruling for Republican priorities, has delivered major defeats to Trump this year on his sweeping tariffs and plan to roll back birthright citizenship.
The court’s actions suggest that justices will not be receptive to last-minute efforts to change election rules heading into the midterms.
What's confirmed
- Galagodaatte Gnanasara served less than a year in prison before being pardoned by Maithripala Sirisena Galagodaatte Gnanasara served less than a year in prison before being pardoned by Maithripala Sirisena Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has overturned a presidential pardon granted to a hardline Buddhist monk and asked him to return to prison.
- The application asked the justices to set aside a 2-1 ruling issued Wednesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which directed the Federal Communications Commission to resolve by Friday a dispute over the agency’s policy to extend the low advertising rates used by political candidates to party coordinated advertising and joint fundraising committees.
- “If you’re a wealthy person who wants to support your preferred candidates to the maximum extent possible, you now have another vehicle through which you can direct very large amounts of money,” said Erin Chlopak, a senior director of campaign finance at the Campaign Legal Center.
What's still developing
- “Compliance with the USPS’ rule would be impossible ahead of the midterms, meaning that millions of voters would be unable to vote by mail and some would not be able to vote at all,” the state attorneys general told the court last week.
- “I think the court is going to pay very close attention to any extraordinary actions that destabilize the electoral process,” said Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel under President Barack Obama.
- “In both instances, the court said we’re not going to countenance that,” said Travis Crum, an NBC News contributor and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
- “There’s a signal here that this sort of late intervention is going to receive scrutiny.” On the left, the Supreme Court has been viewed with particular distrust and alarm as it relates to election issues following a major ruling in the spring that further weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act.
- Abhishek Kambil said the lack of a fuller explanation from the court’s majority stood out to him.
- "I think the biggest surprise was the fact that it came with an unreasoned order, especially right after they granted a stay in Missouri, which was also on an unreasoned order. So, in cases like this, where there's a lot at stake, you would hope that in a stay opinion that the Supreme Court would explain its reasoning," Kambil said.
- "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," Kavanaugh wrote in his concurring opinion in United States Postal Service, et al.
- "I think there's a fair chance that it winds back up in front of the Supreme Court eventually," Snead told Fox News Digital.
- On Sept. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed a federal district court order in conflict with a Missouri Supreme Court ruling, which ordered that the 2025 map would not be in effect unless it was approved by voters.
- The U.S. Department of Justice then appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the Supreme Court, arguing the rules fell within the authority Congress has given to USPS.
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