The recent initial endorsement by the U.S. Supreme Court of President Donald Trump’s limitations on mail-in voting has cast doubt on the voting method utilized by almost one-third of the country, although it might not result in any procedural changes for the upcoming November midterms. The majority of the high court stated in an unsigned order on Monday that the constitutionality of Trump’s directive is yet to be determined, but the states that filed lawsuits lacked the legal standing to challenge it.
Despite the uncertainty of a potential significant change, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, cautioning that the ruling introduces unnecessary chaos and uncertainty into the midterm elections. Trump’s executive order, issued in March, instructs his administration to compile lists of eligible voters and directs the U.S. Postal Service to send mail-in ballots only to individuals on those lists.
While a second injunction preventing the postal service from implementing changes to comply with the order remains in place, the administration has requested the removal of this hold and published new regulations that would take effect on Tuesday if the legal obstacles are removed. These regulations mandate specific envelope formatting for mail-in ballots, potentially necessitating some jurisdictions to entirely revise their processes, and require states to utilize an electronic system to inform the postal service about mail-in voters. Failure to comply would result in non-dispatch of mail ballots.
Elections in the U.S. are managed by local officials in numerous offices, many of which lack full-time staff. Tammy Patrick, the chief program officer at the Elections Center, an association representing 2,500 election officers, emphasized the impracticality of any state adhering to the new rules, noting that no one she spoke to had attempted such procedures before.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration dismantled the Federal Election Assistance Commission, a traditionally nonpartisan body aiding election officials nationwide and overseeing the national mail voter registration form. The commission reported that 29% of Americans cast mail-in ballots in the 2024 midterms.
Jesse Salinas, the registrar of Yolo County in California and president of the state’s association of election officers, highlighted that ballots in California are scheduled to be sent out in 11 days, with his county having already printed envelopes. He dismissed the possibility of last-minute procedural changes, stating, “The capacity to do that, I just don’t see it.”
In the past, judges thwarted Trump’s attempts to impose new voting restrictions via executive order. Additionally, a proposed bill to reform voting procedures, the Save America Act, faced impediments in the Senate, with Republicans advising the White House that it lacked sufficient support for passage, even after Trump’s televised appeal for its importance.
Furthermore, the Trump administration encountered setbacks this year when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that states can count ballots arriving after election day. The administration’s efforts to obtain voter roll information from various states faced legal barriers, with federal judges rejecting multiple requests due to concerns regarding privacy laws at the federal and state levels.
Trump has won two of the three presidential elections with the highest percentage of mail-in or absentee ballots, despite his consistent criticism of the practice, claiming it opens the door to potential fraud. As a result, Democrats are now more inclined to vote by mail compared to Republicans, a partisan divide that became more pronounced following Trump’s entry into national politics. While individual instances of voter fraud do occur, there is no substantiated evidence supporting Trump’s allegations of widespread or systematic fraud, such as millions of unauthorized individuals voting for his Democratic opponent in 2016 or the claim that his loss to Joe Biden in the subsequent election was manipulated.