The Court Did Not Rule Trump’s Restrictions Legal, but Its 6-3 Decision Removed One Challenge as States Prepare to Send Out Mail Ballots
The Supreme Court on Monday gave President Donald Trump’s administration an opening to move forward with parts of his executive order restricting mail-in voting, just weeks before states begin sending ballots for the November midterm elections.
The 6-3 decision does not settle whether Trump’s order is constitutional. Instead, the court concluded that 23 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia had challenged the president’s directives too early because they had not yet demonstrated that the order itself caused them concrete harm.
That distinction could prove significant. The ruling removes one legal obstacle facing the administration but leaves the door open for states and other groups to return to court as federal agencies attempt to put the president’s directives into practice.
“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,” the majority wrote in an unsigned order. “On that score, time will tell.”
Supreme Court Does Not Decide Whether Trump’s Order Is Legal
Trump signed the executive order in March as part of a broader push to change how federal elections and mail ballots are handled.
Among its provisions, the order directs the Department of Homeland Security to develop citizenship lists for each state and calls for changes to how the U.S. Postal Service handles mail and absentee ballots. The administration wants states to provide voter information that can be checked against those federal lists.
The Postal Service has also developed requirements that could prevent it from handling mail ballots from states that do not comply with the administration’s system.
But the clock is already running.
North Carolina is scheduled to begin sending ballots to military and overseas voters Sept. 4, with other states following shortly afterward. That gives election administrators little time to make major changes before voting begins.
A separate nationwide injunction issued in another case also continues to block portions of the administration’s plan involving the Postal Service, meaning Monday’s Supreme Court ruling does not automatically put the entire system into effect.
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the ruling a “painful setback” while promising additional litigation.
“This is just the first inning of a very fast nine-inning game,” Notre Dame University law professor Derek Muller said.
Liberal Justices Warn of Election Disruption
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Jackson sharply criticized the majority’s approach, warning that states could be forced to wait until the federal government begins implementing policies before they are allowed to challenge them.
She called the situation another step in a “Kafkaesque nightmare” for plaintiffs trying to bring election-related lawsuits.
The dispute centers partly on who has the constitutional power to establish election procedures. Democratic officials challenging the order argue that the Constitution gives states — subject to congressional authority — the responsibility for administering elections and that a president cannot unilaterally rewrite those rules.
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The Supreme Court’s ruling did not resolve that constitutional argument.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the administration was trying to make it harder for Americans to vote and pledged that Democrats would continue fighting the changes.
Twelve Republican-leaning states, meanwhile, backed the Trump administration in the Supreme Court dispute, arguing that states would have input as the federal government develops its voter lists.
Mail Voting Again at Center of Trump Election Fight
Trump has targeted mail-in voting for years, repeatedly linking it to widespread election fraud despite a lack of evidence supporting those claims.
He has continued to argue that tighter federal controls are necessary to prevent noncitizens from participating in elections. Voting by noncitizens in federal elections is already illegal, and documented cases remain rare.
Mail voting, meanwhile, has become a major part of American elections.
About 30% of ballots in the 2024 presidential election were cast by mail, according to federal election data. A 2025 Brookings Institution study cited in reporting on the dispute found approximately four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail ballots cast.
The Observer previously reported on Trump’s push to restrict mail-in voting and resistance from within the Republican Party as well as federal voter-data requests raising privacy and voting-rights concerns.
For voters and election officials, Monday’s decision is unlikely to be the final word. States can challenge individual policies once the administration begins implementing them, and separate litigation could still stop significant portions of Trump’s plan before ballots go out.
The result is a rapidly changing legal landscape surrounding a voting method used by millions of Americans with the November midterms approaching.
