Trump Makes Third Supreme Court Appeal on Mail Ballot Restrictions

The Trump administration filed its third appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Sunday, September 6, seeking to allow new restrictions on mail ballots to take effect in time for the November midterm elections. The filing comes as states begin sending out ballots, with North Carolina already mailing its first batch and Alabama scheduled to follow on September 9. According to AP News, Solicitor General John Sauer argued that “ballots have already begun to be mailed in North Carolina, and more States will begin the mailing process as the injunction remains in place.”

The Executive Order at the Center of the Dispute

The legal battle stems from Executive Order 14399, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” which President Trump signed on March 31. The order, available in full on the White House website, directs the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to compile lists of adult U.S. citizens in each state and requires the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to voters on those lists.

The Postal Service published its final implementing rule in August, requiring states to upload voter information to an online Federal Ballot Mail Portal, adopt specific envelope design standards, and use unique Intelligent Mail barcodes on ballot envelopes. Nearly one-third of U.S. voters cast mail ballots, making the stakes of the dispute significant for the upcoming elections when control of Congress is on the line.

A Rapidly Escalating Legal Battle

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority previously allowed the administration’s plan to move forward in late August, though it did not rule on the order’s legality. In that ruling, the Court found that states challenging the order had sued prematurely before the Postal Service issued its rule. As SCOTUSblog reported, the majority wrote that it was “too soon for courts to consider the states’ challenge because the order had not yet been carried out.”

Following that decision, U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order on August 27, and then on September 4 replaced it with a preliminary injunction barring the administration from requiring states to comply with the rule indefinitely. The judge wrote that states are “unable to pivot this late in the election cycle, nearly guaranteeing significant disenfranchisement for eligible voters,” as reported by The Guardian.

Sunday’s filing marks the third time the administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene. Sauer argued that the injunction “nullifies the Postal Service’s efforts to address the risk that the federal mails will be used to perpetrate voter fraud,” and warned that “once those ballot envelopes enter the mailstream, there is no retrieving them.”

Constitutional Questions and Practical Concerns

At the heart of the dispute is a fundamental constitutional question: does the president have authority to regulate election procedures? A coalition of 23 states plus the District of Columbia, led by California, has sued to block the order, arguing it conflicts with constitutional provisions that give states power over election administration.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the coalition has “secured longer-term relief that will keep the USPS changes blocked while our case moves forward,” vowing to “continue to take all steps to stop the Trump Administration from trampling on voting rights.” The administration counters that the Postal Service has rulemaking authority from Congress and that the rule “imposes only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements,” as NBC News reported.

Beyond the constitutional questions, election officials and voting rights advocates have raised serious practical concerns about implementation. A whistleblower report released by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned that the USPS system built to implement the order was rushed and potentially flawed. According to the report, covered by Newsmax, the Federal Ballot Mail Portal was constructed in roughly three months when it would normally take a year or more, did not undergo full testing, and could potentially prevent millions of mail ballots from being delivered due to a single scanning error in a batch.

Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement: “With fewer than 60 days to go before the November election, there is not a shred of evidence that states could comply with it without disenfranchising voters who rely on mail ballots. Put plainly, this administration is racing to the Supreme Court to demand the right to enforce a rule that has no purpose other than to create chaos.”

Notably, no state has voluntarily opted into the new USPS system, including the 12 Republican-leaning states that intervened to support the administration. During a hearing before Judge Talwani, she questioned whether the government even had a working system ready, asking: “As you sit here today, you can’t tell me the government has a program ready to go?”

Broader Context: Trump’s Long Campaign Against Mail Voting

Trump has long sought to limit mail voting, even though he himself often uses that method to cast his own ballot. He has falsely blamed mail balloting for his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, spreading baseless claims of fraud. Mail balloting has become increasingly popular across party lines, with about 30% of all ballots cast by mail in the 2024 presidential election. A 2025 Brookings Institution study found only about four cases of fraud out of every 10 million mail ballots cast.

An earlier executive order Trump issued in 2025 to change election rules was halted by federal judges who ruled the Constitution gives states and Congress power over voting procedures, not the president. The current dispute follows a similar pattern, with the administration seeking to expand federal authority over election administration.

What’s Next

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has initial responsibility for emergency appeals from Massachusetts, has directed the challengers to file their response by 4 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, September 9. Alabama is scheduled to begin mailing ballots the same day, with at least five more states following the week of September 13.

As Al Jazeera noted, with control of the U.S. Congress up for grabs in November, how the Supreme Court rules on the appeal could have major implications. The Court previously allowed the plan to move forward without ruling on its legality, leaving open the possibility of further legal challenges regardless of the outcome.

Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame University, described the ongoing fight as “just the first inning of a very fast nine-inning game.” With ballots already moving through the mail and more states preparing to send theirs out in the coming days, the Supreme Court’s decision on this latest appeal will arrive at a critical juncture in the election calendar.