The nation’s top court issued an unsigned order this week refusing to let the U.S. Postal Service enforce a set of envelope-design and data-submission requirements crafted under a March executive order from former President Donald Trump. The brief ruling noted that “The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge.” As a result, states will continue to run their elections under the same rules that have guided past cycles.
Trump’s March directive instructed the Postal Service to develop a national framework for handling mail-in ballots. The final rule, released in August, stipulated that each state must upload a list of eligible voters to a new online portal, affix a unique barcode to every ballot envelope, and include an official election-mail logo. Failure to meet these standards would have allowed the Postal Service to refuse delivery of ballots to non-compliant states.
How the rule was built and why it stumbled
The proposed system required states to submit voter names and addresses to a portal that the Postal Service said would be operational “soon” on September 1. An anonymous federal employee filed a whistle-blower complaint with Senator Richard Blumenthal describing the rollout as “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed.” A September audit by the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General revealed that several facilities mishandled ballots during the primaries, though the agency claimed ” ProPublica reporter Jen Fifield highlighted internal concerns that the new standards could delay or reject large numbers of ballots.
Legal challenges quickly emerged. A coalition of 23 states and the District of Columbia, led by California, sued in federal court in Massachusetts, arguing that the executive order infringed on the Constitution’s allocation of election-setting power to the states. District Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary injunction on June 25, barring the rule’s implementation before the November elections. The Supreme Court briefly lifted that injunction on August 24, only to reinstate it after Talwani issued a new order on August 27 that froze the rule for 14 days. The administration’s request to pause Talwani’s order was withdrawn on September 3, and a subsequent request to overturn the preliminary injunction was also denied.
Judicial opinions and political reactions
In the latest decision, the Court’s majority declined the administration’s request for relief. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a one-paragraph concurrence, acknowledging that the Postal Service may have authority to set such standards, but emphasizing that election officials lack sufficient time to implement them before the midterms. Justice Samuel Alito filed an eight-page dissent, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas insisting that the challengers lacked standing and characterizing the suit as a “Hail Mary pass” unlikely to succeed.
President Trump blasted the ruling on his Truth Social platform, calling it “a big loss for Republicans, and America itself.” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales defended the administration’s stance, saying the president seeks “commonsense exceptions” for voters with illness, disability, travel, or military service, while warning that “universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud.” Yet independent studies have repeatedly shown voter fraud to be exceedingly rare.
Impact on voters and the upcoming midterms
The decision leaves the existing patchwork of state mail-in voting rules untouched. According to the Brookings Institute, roughly one third of American voters now cast ballots by mail, though usage varies widely: over 95% in all-mail states like Oregon and Washington, versus fewer than 3% in West Virginia and Tennessee. Law professor Richard Hasen of UCLA warned that the proposed rule would have hit the groups most dependent on mail voting—seniors, people with disabilities, and residents of remote areas.
A bipartisan group of 99 current and former election officials submitted a brief on September 3, stating that compliance with the Postal Service’s demands would have been impossible before the November elections. As Justice Kavanaugh noted, “state and local election officials didn’t have enough time to implement the changes.” Consequently, voting administrators across the United States will continue to conduct elections as they have in the past, relying on established procedures for ballot printing, mailing, and counting.
Voters who plan to request absentee ballots should still verify their state’s specific requirements, submit requests well before deadlines, and consider returning completed ballots via drop boxes or early-voting sites to avoid postal delays. Experts advise checking state portals for ballot status and keeping a copy of the signed ballot as a safeguard.
