Seven weeks before the country’s legislative elections, the US Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump’s effort to tighten mail-in voting rules. Seven of the nine justices, including three Trump appointees, sided against the proposed changes, preventing measures that could have disrupted voting this fall.
The court refused to hear the Trump administration’s appeal of a lower court order that had already halted the president’s plan. Trump’s proposal would have required states to redesign ballots with individualized barcodes and upload voter lists to an online portal that was not ready. Most justices saw little chance the challenge would succeed. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, noted that even if the changes were legal, state and local officials did not have enough time to implement them before November. Many states had already started mailing ballots, leaving no time for a last-minute overhaul and risking voter disenfranchisement, Reuters reported. The news agency also reported that federal judges said the USPS has the authority to deliver mail but not to impose new election-administration procedures on states.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that mail-in voting leads to widespread fraud. Yet he has used mail ballots himself in recent elections. After returning to office last year, he signed an executive order directing the US Postal Service to overhaul the mail voting system. Civil rights groups and lawmakers from both parties objected, warning that millions of voters could lose access and that the changes were impossible to carry out so close to the election. AP News reported that the proposed rules included new verification steps and required states to share data with the USPS. State officials said this would have meant completely reworking their procedures.
Mail-in voting is common across the US and used by voters from both parties. In 2024, about a third of voters used it, and in states like Utah, it is the basic way people vote. Printing and distributing ballots takes months, and some states had already sent them out. Trump’s plan would have forced states to scrap and redesign ballots mid-process, creating confusion and legal fights. The California Attorney General’s office noted that a coalition of 24 state attorneys general and Pennsylvania’s governor challenged the changes, calling them “draconian” and unlawful.
For Trump and his allies, restricting mail voting might have improved their chances of keeping congressional majorities. The Supreme Court’s ruling leaves the current system in place, so voters in every state can still use mail ballots. The timing matters as the president faces political pressure over fuel prices and foreign policy setbacks, as covered in a recent report on US tensions in the Gulf.
The decision also shows the limits of executive power, even with a court shaped by Trump’s own appointments.
