(Jacquelyn Martin/AP photo)
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to allow President Donald Trump’s restrictions on mail-in voting to take effect ahead of the midterm elections.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed the changes should remain blocked by a lower court injunction for the midterms but signaled he could ultimately side with the Trump administration in the long term.
The New York Times noted that the court offered little explanation for its decision. The court’s brief order blocking the government’s restrictions said the administration was “unlikely to succeed on the merits” of its challenge to the lower-court ruling.
Kavanaugh, however, explained his reasoning in a one-paragraph concurrence focused on the midterm elections. He wrote that there was “at least a fair prospect” that the U.S. Postal Service will ultimately be able to implement the new rules, but concluded that applying them to this year’s election would be “arbitrary and capricious” because officials “do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”
The decision comes just weeks after the Supreme Court handed Trump an earlier victory, ruling 6-3 that parts of his executive order on the matter could move forward. The Aug. 24 ruling allowed the Department of Homeland Security to compile a federal citizenship list and cleared the way for the Postal Service to develop new rules governing mail ballots.
The restrictions then faced further scrutiny after a USPS whistleblower raised “grave concerns” about the agency’s development of the new system, alleging that “even one bar code on one single ballot” failing to scan could hold up a batch containing tens of thousands of ballots. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani temporarily halted the USPS requirements after finding the agency likely lacked the authority to impose them, a ruling the Justice Department appealed.
Monday’s ruling keeps the USPS requirements on hold for the midterms, though the broader legal fight over whether the agency can ultimately impose them remains unresolved.
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