The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for President Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting to take effect before the November midterms.
The 6-3 decision, with liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting, overturned a lower court injunction that had blocked the March 31 order in 23 Democratic-led states. The majority did not rule on whether the order itself was lawful, finding instead that the states’ claimed harms were too speculative to support a lawsuit at this stage.
The court held that federal courts cannot adjudicate disputes dependent on “contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all.” The injunction had applied specifically to the coalition of states that challenged the president’s directive, which they argued unconstitutionally infringed on their authority to administer elections.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who joined the lawsuit, fired back in a statement vowing continued legal resistance.
“This decision is a painful setback, but it will not be the final word,” James said. “The right to vote is sacred, and no administration should be allowed to put that right in jeopardy by making it harder for eligible voters to cast their ballots.
“This fight is far from over. We are exploring our legal options.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, whose swing state was among the challengers, wrote on X that the ruling left the core fight unresolved.
“Not so fast,” Shapiro wrote. “Today’s SCOTUS decision does NOT deal with the substance of Trump’s unconstitutional Executive Order and does not mean his illegal attempt to restrict mail-in voting will go forward.
“Donald Trump does not run elections here in Pennsylvania — or in any state.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, 74, raged on X that the ruling amounted to democratic damage.
“Trump’s effort to turn the Postal Service into a voter suppression machine is blatantly unconstitutional – yet his MAGA Supreme Court is refusing to stop it from going forward,” Schumer wrote. “Trump’s malicious effort to stop mail-in voting is nothing but election interference in broad daylight.”
The executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to create lists of eligible voters, with the Postal Service delivering mail ballots only to people on those lists. The Department of Justice is tasked with investigating wrongdoing in mail ballot distribution, and states that disobey risk losing federal funds.
Trump, 78, defended the policy at the March signing ceremony.
“I believe it’s foolproof, and maybe it’ll be tested. Maybe it won’t,” Trump said. “It’s about voter integrity; we want to have honest voting in our country.”
The Postal Service advanced the order Friday by publishing a rule requiring states to provide voter lists at least 60 days before the midterms, with the agency refusing to send mail ballots from noncompliant states. Postmaster General David Steiner said in June the rule would let USPS “match the ballots that a state believes they’re sending out to what actually gets sent out.”
In dissent, Sotomayor and Kagan argued the 23 states had standing based on “the credible threat that the Government will initiate investigations and prosecutions because they refuse to use the lists.” Jackson, in a separate dissent, warned the ruling “injects additional unknowns into the already fraught pre-election period” and raised concerns that future challenges might come too late in the cycle.
The court’s June ruling that states may count ballots arriving after Election Day if properly postmarked came through its regular docket, unlike Monday’s emergency decision. About 30% of 2024 presidential election ballots were cast by mail, according to federal data.
Trump has been a vocal critic of mail-in voting for years, though he used the process himself to cast an absentee ballot in last week’s Florida primary election.