Supreme Court blocks Trump mail ballot curbs before midterms

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s bid to restrict mail ballots for the midterm elections, capping a flurry of last-minute legal action with voting already underway. The decision lets states keep sending out mail ballots under the same processes they have used for years and that have accounted for nearly a third of votes cast.

The court’s brief emergency order did not detail its reasoning, but the majority wrote that the administration’s push to implement the restrictions this year is likely to lose in court. Two justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, publicly dissented.

The Supreme Court majority wrote that the administration’s push to implement the restrictions this year “is likely to lose in court.”

The Trump administration had asked the justices to clear the way for restrictions before the November contests for control of Congress. Alito wrote in his dissent that the Postal Service “has broad authority to regulate the mail” and likely does have the power to enforce the restrictions.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that the restrictions should not go into effect for the midterms but indicated he might rule in favor of the administration if the issue returns to the court later.

Election officials have said there was simply no way to carry out a complete overhaul in the weeks before the midterms. Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin began sending mail ballots to voters over the past week while the proposed system was still not active.

Under the administration’s plan, states would have to adopt a uniform envelope style and submit lists of eligible voters to an online portal. The Postal Service could refuse to deliver ballots to states that did not comply.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, said the decision means work “to carry out a safe, secure, and accurate election” can continue “without having to upend our election processes to meet unrealistic ballot mail requirements.”

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat in another largely vote-by-mail state, said “it is crucial for us to continue rejecting the notion that access and security are mutually exclusive when it comes to running strong elections.”

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican serving as the state’s chief election officer, said on social media that the decision means “Utahns can have confidence that the 2026 election will proceed as normal.”

Democratic state officials and voting rights groups had challenged the restrictions in court, arguing that the president has no constitutional authority to set election rules that would “virtually eliminate mail voting on the eve of a major election.”

A whistleblower report said the postal system’s requirements could lead to millions of mail ballots never being sent, because problems with the not-yet-operational portal meant a single bar code error could result in an entire batch of ballots being tossed out.

Some states do not have the infrastructure to quickly pivot back to in-person voting, according to court documents.

The League of Women Voters, a plaintiff in the case, called the proposed restrictions “an extraordinary attempt to interfere with voting” and said they would have thrown elections into chaos. “Voters should never be caught in the middle of a political power warfare,” said CEO Celina Stewart.

Lower courts had agreed to block the plan, including a preliminary injunction issued by a judge nominated by the president. The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that federal control of the Postal Service allows the government to set rules for mail ballot handling and that compliance was possible.

The federal government won an early procedural decision at the Supreme Court, but the justices pointedly did not decide the legality of the plan.

Trump has long opposed mail voting and falsely blamed it for his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, even though he often uses that method to cast his own ballot, including as recently as this year.

A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that mail voting fraud occurred in only about four cases out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.