The Supreme Court will let Donald Trump implement a sweeping executive order for new mail-in voting rules that could significantly restrict voters’ access to ballots in high-stakes midterm elections this fall.
Federal courts have blocked the U.S. Postal Service from further implementing Trump’s executive order that sought to create a national voter registration list that would be used to decide who is eligible to cast a ballot.
Trump’s order would also force states to add barcodes to ballots and rely on the administration’s voter lists compiled by the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. On August 21, the U.S. Postal Service published its new certification requirements, as per Trump’s order. Those changes could not go into effect until federal courts lifted an injunction against them.
Monday’s 6-3 order — with the court’s liberal justices dissenting — appears to leave some room for legal challenges to continue, which could further slow or block Trump’s order altogether with critical registration and ballot deadlines approaching before Election Day.
Dozens of election officials and voting rights groups have warned that Trump’s order would cause chaos before midterms without enough time to ensure eligible voters weren’t wrongly removed from voter rolls – errors that could disenfranchise millions of Americans.
“The consequences of allowing such transformative changes to take effect so close to this fall’s elections would be extreme,” nearly two dozen state attorneys general wrote to the court earlier this month.
“Because of the high risk of errors and the limited window for correcting mistakes, many of the millions of voters who rely on mail voting — especially voters with disabilities and those in rural areas — would likely be denied mail ballots and, as a result, disenfranchised,” they added.
A bipartisan coalition of 118 current and former election officials tasked with running the nation’s elections said the results will be “chaos.” And a group of 53 judges — most of whom were appointed by Republicans — called Trump’s order “a recipe for confusion among voters” that will “strain” election officials.
This is a developing story