In an unsigned one-paragraph ruling Monday, over the dissent of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the court blocked President Trump’s plan to change the way Americans vote by mail in the November midterm elections.
The ruling enables states to continue sending out mail ballots under the processes they’ve used for years and have accounted for nearly a third of votes cast, says The Associated Press.
It’s a defeat for Trump on an issue he consistently has said is vital to ensuring election integrity, even though there’s virtually no evidence of fraud with mail ballots, AP says.
The decision is a “resounding win” for Democratic-led states and voting rights groups, says The New York Times. They had argued that changing the Postal Service requirements so close to the election threatened to cause “catastrophic harms,” leading to mass confusion and “a significant risk that millions more voters would be denied the ability to vote.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented voting rights organizations in the case, is celebrating the ruling:
“The president does not run our elections, the Postal Service does not get to decide whose ballot counts, and voters — not the White House — will decide November’s elections,” says Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.
Some Republican election officials also are cheering the ruling, as in Utah, which almost exclusively votes by mail.
The Republican secretaries of state in Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, Georgia, New Hampshire and Kansas, along with the lieutenant governor of Utah, had urged the court not to allow major changes so close to the midterms.
“Attempting to implement the rule now will almost certainly lead to mistakes, delays and confusion for both voters and election officials,” said the brief the GOP officials filed in the case.
Alito wrote in his dissent that the Postal Service “has broad authority to regulate the mail” and likely has the power to enforce Trump’s restrictions.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed that the restrictions shouldn’t go into effect for the midterms but indicated he might rule in favor of the Trump administration if the issue comes back before the court.
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