The Supreme Court's conservative majority sided with the Trump administration on Monday in a case over President Donald Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting, though the Court stopped short of deciding the order's legality. The ruling, issued as an unsigned order, holds that the states challenging the order did not have the legal right to do so.
A procedural ruling with unresolved merits
The Court's decision does not address whether Trump's order is lawful. The majority wrote: "The Court's disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell."The ruling overturned an injunction that a judge had placed on the order in June. The order itself, signed in March, directs the creation of voter lists and instructs the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to voters on those lists.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing that the ruling "lets another shoe drop in the Kafkaesque nightmare that our precedents have been steadily creating for certain plaintiffs who seek to bring election-related challenges."
Timing and next steps
The decision opens a path for the administration to begin implementing the order, but it remains unclear how much can be put into effect before the midterm elections. The first mail ballots in the nation are scheduled to be sent to overseas and military voters from North Carolina in 10 days.The U.S. Postal Service laid out how it would implement the order last week. Additional legal challenges could still slow the process, including lawsuits filed by the Postal Service and scrutiny of a new USPS rule.
Derek Muller, an election law professor at Notre Dame, described the situation as "the first inning of a very fast nine-inning game."
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the ruling a "painful setback" but vowed it would "not be the final word."
Reactions from states
The legal challenge was brought by Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia, who argued that the Constitution gives states and Congress the power to run elections.In Wisconsin, the bipartisan Elections Commission chairman Don Millis said the ruling likely has no effect in the state, with legal challenges continuing. The commission is set to hold a closed session Aug. 31 to discuss developments.
Wisconsin officials previously blocked a Trump administration effort to obtain personal voter information such as names, dates of birth, addresses, and driver's license numbers. Millis and fellow commissioner Ann Jacobs urged USPS to reject that data-sharing proposal in a joint letter.