The Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by the Trump administration to place restrictions on mail-in voting, allowing states to proceed with sending out ballots as planned. The decision keeps in place a lower court ruling that blocks the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from implementing new rules.
"The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court's preliminary injunction," the Supreme Court stated in its ruling. This decision clears the path for states to continue their established processes for distributing mail-in ballots ahead of upcoming elections.
The Trump administration had sought to implement new regulations requiring states to provide the USPS with basic voter information, such as names and home addresses, for each mail-in ballot. These ballots would have been required to include a unique barcode. The USPS would then have been instructed to deliver these ballots only to voters whose information appeared on the state-provided lists. The administration argued these requirements would impose only "modest" burdens on states and were not onerous.
However, Democratic-led states and various voter advocacy groups contended that these proposed USPS regulations constituted an effort by the Trump administration to federalize election processes. They argued that such measures would make it more difficult for citizens to vote by mail, infringing upon states' historical and constitutional authority over their own elections.