The Supreme Court on Monday tossed out a sweeping Trump administration plan to overhaul mail-in voting rules before the midterms, blocking changes that opponents said could have upended the election. In an unsigned emergency order, the justices said the government was "unlikely to succeed on the merits," siding with Democratic-led states and voting rights groups that argued the proposal violated the Constitution and threatened the basic functioning of US elections. No vote tally was released, the New York Times reports, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately to concur, while Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The decision, a major defeat for President Trump, leaves existing election procedures in place, so states can send out ballots using the processes they have followed for years, per the AP. It also prohibits changes that could have significantly affected millions of voters planning to cast their ballots by mail in the November elections that will decide whether Republicans or Democrats control Congress, per the Washington Post. Almost one-third of Americans who vote do so by mail.
The administration had pushed to use the Postal Service to more aggressively police mail ballots: States would have been required to submit approved voter lists, with ballots delivered only to those on the lists, and to adopt new USPS-approved envelopes marked with unique bar codes for each voter, per the Times. State officials had warned that redesigning ballots and systems so close to the election was unrealistic and would likely cause delays. Even with the plan blocked, the flurry of last-minute court fights could add to the uncertainty around mail voting that Trump has repeatedly tried to highlight.
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