US Supreme Court rejects restrictions on mail-in voting for November elections

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday night temporarily blocked a request filed by President Donald Trump’s administration to restrict mail-in voting during the midterm elections in November.

In a brief order released to the media, the Court stated that “the government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court in Boston, which prevents the Postal Service from implementing these restrictive measures in the November statewide elections.”

The justices had previously denied the Justice Department’s request to overturn the ruling by Boston District Court Judge Indira Talwani, which barred the Postal Service from enforcing these measures pending the resolution of legal challenges filed by several states and voting rights groups.

The Supreme Court’s decision comes less than two months before the midterm elections, which will determine which party controls both chambers of Congress, where Republicans hold narrow majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The ruling allows states to continue mailing ballots using the same procedures they have followed for years.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the justices appointed by President Trump, said in a statement that he voted with the majority despite there being a reasonable possibility that Trump’s plan was “lawful.”

Kavanaugh added that “applying the rule in the 2026 election would be an arbitrary and capricious action, contrary to logic, and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.”

He noted that “election officials at the local and state levels do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the election date, and for this reason I support the decision to deny the request for a stay.”

In dissent, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito opposed the decision to deny the stay of the injunction that blocked the implementation of the Postal Service’s rule, which was issued in late August.

Notably, this rule, which implemented an executive order issued by President Trump in March, established new standards for ballot envelopes and required states to prepare lists of voters eligible to receive mail-in ballots.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday night is limited to preventing the enforcement of the Postal Service’s rule in the November elections, leaving open the possibility that the Court may allow the rule to be applied in future elections.