BREAKING: US Supreme Court blocks Trump rule limiting mail voting, sides with Dem states

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday kept in place a lower court’s order blocking President Donald Trump’s embattled plan to place new restrictions on mail ballots for this year’s midterm elections.

The unsigned, one-paragraph order upheld a Massachusetts federal court’s injunction on a U.S. Postal Service rule until after Nov. 3 and did not decide whether the rule itself was lawful. But a majority of the court said the Democratic state officials and voting rights groups challenging the rule were likely to succeed.

Two of the court’s stalwart conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented from the decision. Alito wrote that the Postal Service has “broad authority to regulate the mail” and that at this preliminary stage of the suit challenging the rule, its policy should remain in place.

“I express no view on whether the Government would be likely to succeed on de novo review of the Postal Service’s powers,” he wrote. “But for now, the Government has satisfied its burden of making a strong showing that the plaintiff States’ … claim is not likely to succeed.”

In a brief concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the rule, which codifies technical requirements on the envelopes carrying ballots and requires states to collect and send to the federal government lists of eligible voters, may be legal, but was unworkable for the midterm elections 50 days away.

“There is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority,” he wrote. “But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious …  because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”

The rule’s challengers argued, in part, that the regulations would be impossible to install ahead of Election Day. Several election administrators, pro-democracy groups and others declared to the court that they agreed with that argument. 

The Postal Service did not bring any evidence against those claims.

Democrats and voting rights advocates also argued the rule was illegal and unconstitutional. The executive branch has virtually no role in elections administration, which is a state responsibility with congressional oversight under the U.S. Constitution, they said. 

This is a developing report that will be updated.