U.S. Supreme Court blocks Trump’s USPS mail voting restrictions: ‘Big victory for voters’
The high court rejected the Trump administration’s effort to impose new USPS requirements on mail ballots just weeks before the midterm election.
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump‘s executive order that sought to dramatically change how voters cast their mail-in ballots just days away from the midterm election.
In a majority opinion issued Monday evening, the court rejected the Trump administration’s effort to restrict how state mail-in ballots are received by the United States Postal Service. The Trump order handed unprecedented control of mail voting to the USPS by empowering it to resue to deliver ballots sent by anyone not included on a newly created federal mail voter lists.
In Monday’s opinion, the high court majority denied the Trump administration’s application for stay of a lower court order that ruled “the executive branch has no authority to regulate elections.” The lower court also noted that the Trump order would cause “irreparable harm” to voting rights groups and voters by creating confusion about mail ballots that millions of voters rely on just before a major election.
The case was referred by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the only two dissents.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by Trump, said that while, in his view, there is “at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority,” its implementation just weeks away from Election Day would be “arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”
In a statement provided to theGrio, Kristen Clarke, NAACP General Counsel, celebrated the ruling.
“This decision is a big victory for voters this midterm election season,” said Clarke, a former attorney general for civil rights during the Biden administration. “The Supreme Court rightly rejected an effort that would have made it harder for millions of Americans to participate in our elections. Mail voting is safe, secure, and deeply rooted in our nation’s history.”
Clarke added, “The Court’s decision preserves a critical pathway to the ballot box and reaffirms that our democracy works best when every eligible voter can participate. We will continue to use every tool available to support Americans in registering their voices and their ballots this midterm election cycle.”
The NAACP and other voting rights groups had on the frontlines fighting against Trump’s order on mail-in voting, filing lawsuits and amicus briefs arguing that the executive action was a violation of the law. The Constitution grants states authority over the administering of federal elections, not the federal government.
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the mail-in ballot restrictions threatened to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who rely on mail voting to “participate in our democracy while balancing work, caregiving responsibilities, disabilities, and other realities of daily life.”
“The Trump administration is trying to limit access to the ballot, sow confusion at the polls and to use the ensuing chaos as an excuse to exert power over agencies and processes in a politicized way,” said Hewitt, who noted that Black and brown voters are “frequently targeted by voter suppression schemes.”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson said Trump’s “repeated attacks on his own citizens’ voting rights are straight out of an authoritarian ruler’s playbook.”
The civil rights leader said of the president: “Every time he has tested the limits of his powers, the resistance movement has grown stronger.”
He added, “People have turned out, marched, sued, and organized. With less than fifty days until the November 3rd election, now is not the time to slow down — it is time to double down.”