The Trump administration escalated its legal fight over mail-in voting to the Supreme Court on Sunday, asking justices to temporarily allow the US Postal Service to enforce new restrictions on postal ballots just weeks before November’s midterm elections.
The emergency filing, submitted by Solicitor General John Sauer, marks the third time the administration has asked the high court to intervene in the dispute. The court previously allowed the plan to move forward but has not ruled on whether it is legal.
The appeal follows a Friday order by US District Judge Indira Talwani that extended a block preventing the USPS from enforcing President Donald Trump’s executive order. Talwani wrote that Trump’s directives, which would grant the federal government power over the handling of mail-in ballots, are likely unconstitutional. In the United States, elections, including those for federal office, are administered by states.
The judge also criticized the timing. With just two months until election day, she wrote, the executive order’s implementation “threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail.”
States already mailing ballots
The legal battle is unfolding as states begin sending out postal ballots. North Carolina has already started mailing them. Alabama begins on September 9. At least five more states start the week of September 13. Sauer warned in the filing that once ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them, and each day the injunction remains in place risks sowing confusion by making preparatory steps voluntary rather than mandatory.
The administration countered Talwani’s ruling by arguing that the Postal Service’s final rule imposes only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements for federal-election ballots sent via US Mail. Sauer wrote that the rule requires states to upload the name, address, and barcode information of intended ballot recipients in an online portal, information that election officials would necessarily already possess to send ballot mail to those recipients.
Sauer said the rule ensures states remain responsible for determining voter eligibility and eligibility to vote by mail. It does not dictate ballot content, mailing or receipt deadlines, or ballot-counting procedures, he wrote. The administration has called its plans to limit mail-in ballots “commonsense measures” aimed at protecting voting security, and called the order blocking those plans “unreasoned and unlawful.”
What the executive order would do
Trump signed the executive order in March. It would prohibit the USPS from delivering ballots to any voters not on a federal list of citizens deemed eligible to vote in each state by the Department of Homeland Security. The result would be a limited delivery of ballots, only to voters on approved lists. The USPS has said it stands ready to implement the restrictions, which would require states to give the postal service the names and barcodes tied to mail-in ballots for federal elections, if the court injunctions are lifted.
Democratic states and voting rights groups argue the changes are unconstitutional. State election officials who run the elections say there is not enough time to overhaul their systems to meet the new federal directives.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson set a deadline of Wednesday for responses to the administration’s request. The outcome of the legal fight could carry significant consequences for this year’s elections, with control of Congress on the line and nearly one-third of US voters casting their ballots by mail.
Trump has repeatedly sought to restrict voting by mail, despite having used the method himself. He has falsely blamed mail balloting for his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden while promoting baseless claims of fraud. Opponents argue the motivation is simpler: Democrats vote by mail more than Republicans.
An analysis by the States United Democracy Center found that many voters across party lines cast ballots by mail. The research showed that one in four registered Democrats and one in five registered Republicans voted by mail in the 2024 presidential election.