Supreme Court rejects Trump’s attempt to steal the midterm elections

The Supreme Court on Monday blocked the Trump administration from imposing sweeping new restrictions on mail voting before the 2026 midterm elections, leaving states free to distribute absentee and mail ballots under their existing procedures as voting gets underway across the country.

The unsigned order denied the administration’s request to lift a nationwide preliminary injunction against a new U.S. Postal Service rule governing election mail. The court said the federal government was “unlikely to succeed on the merits” and had failed to show that the circumstances justified emergency intervention.

The Sept. 14 decision in United States Postal Service v. California represents a significant setback for President Donald Trump’s effort to reshape mail voting weeks before elections that will determine control of Congress.

The immediate effect is straightforward: The Postal Service cannot enforce the new requirements while the lower-court injunction remains in place, and states can continue mailing ballots using procedures already established under state law.

The dispute arose from a Postal Service rule issued in late August pursuant to a presidential directive. It would have required election officials to redesign ballot envelopes to satisfy federal specifications, submit the designs to the Postal Service for approval, and upload voter information to a federal portal.

Under the rule, envelopes would have been required to carry an election-mail logo, be compatible with high-speed Postal Service scanning equipment and contain a specialized barcode unique to each voter. Ballot mail that failed to comply could be rejected by the Postal Service and returned to election officials for correction.

Democratic-led states and voting rights organizations challenged the system, arguing that the federal government was attempting to impose major changes to election administration at a point when states were already preparing and distributing ballots.

Election officials warned that implementing an entirely new system so close to Election Day could cause widespread disruption. Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin had already begun sending mail ballots while litigation over the federal rules continued.

The administration countered that the Postal Service has broad statutory authority to establish rules governing mail handling and that states could comply with the new requirements.

Lower courts blocked the rule. A federal appeals court last week refused to disturb a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, and U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols separately issued an injunction Sunday after concluding that implementation could increase the risk that otherwise valid absentee or mail ballots would not be counted.

The Supreme Court declined to rescue the administration’s plan Monday.

“The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction,” the court said. “And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.”

The order did not include a recorded vote, but separate opinions revealed at least some of the divisions among the justices.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that the restrictions should remain blocked for the 2026 election but left open the possibility that the Postal Service could ultimately prevail in defending its authority.

Kavanaugh wrote that there was “at least a fair prospect” that the rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory powers. But he concluded that enforcing it during the current election would violate the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials had not been given sufficient time to implement the requirements reasonably.

Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.

Alito argued that the government had satisfied the requirements for a stay and challenged both the standing of some plaintiffs and the legal theory used to attack the Postal Service rule. He emphasized that Congress has granted the Postal Service broad authority over the collection, handling, transportation, and delivery of mail.

The decision does not finally resolve whether the Postal Service could impose similar requirements in a future election after providing states more time to comply. Kavanaugh’s concurrence makes clear that at least one justice who voted against immediate implementation considers the underlying question of Postal Service authority unresolved.

For the 2026 midterms, however, the practical question is settled unless subsequent litigation changes the situation: The administration cannot require states to adopt the new envelope, barcode, and voter-information system as a condition for the Postal Service to handle their ballot mail.

The stakes are substantial because mail voting has become an established part of American elections. Nearly one-third of voters cast ballots by mail, according to The Associated Press.

Trump has repeatedly questioned the reliability of mail voting and has continued to make unsupported claims linking it to widespread election fraud. Extensive investigations, recounts and litigation following the 2020 election did not establish widespread mail-ballot fraud sufficient to alter the presidential result. Trump himself has also voted by mail.

The legal fight unfolded unusually close to an election, producing a succession of executive actions, Postal Service regulations, injunctions, appeals and emergency Supreme Court proceedings while election administrators were preparing ballots.

An earlier Supreme Court ruling had allowed litigation over Trump’s directive to proceed along a different procedural path without resolving whether the eventual Postal Service rule itself was lawful. Once the agency issued its final rule, states and voting rights organizations returned to court and obtained new injunctions.

Monday’s decision leaves those injunctions intact.

It also reinforces a distinction that could become important after November: The Supreme Court did not definitively hold that the Postal Service lacks authority to regulate the physical handling of election mail. Instead, it rejected the government’s request to put this particular rule into effect while litigation continues — and, through Kavanaugh’s concurrence, highlighted the serious legal problem created by attempting to overhaul election-mail procedures after states had already begun preparing for the election.

For election officials and voters, the immediate consequence is far less complicated than the litigation that produced it.

The rules for sending mail ballots will not be rewritten by the federal government in the closing weeks of the 2026 midterm campaign.