Supreme Court blocks Trump's plan to restrict mail-in ballots

What the report says

The US Supreme Court has left in place a lower-court block on President Donald Trump’s attempt to tighten rules for mail-in voting ahead of November’s midterm elections, according to BBC World News. The case centers on an executive order Trump signed in March directing the US Postal Service to limit the delivery of postal ballots to voters listed as citizens, along with related changes such as barcode requirements and election-office reporting to an online portal.

BBC reported that the order was challenged by 23 states and Washington DC, plus the postal workers’ union, which argued the changes were unlawful and too disruptive to implement before the election. A federal judge in Boston, Indira Talwani, had already temporarily halted the rules on 4 September, saying they could risk disenfranchising voters if carried out so close to the vote. A federal appeals court declined to suspend that ruling, and the Supreme Court on this occasion also refused to lift it.

The BBC said Justice Brett Kavanaugh, while agreeing with the immediate outcome, suggested the administration could still prevail later as the lawsuit continues. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. The dispute matters because mail voting is used by a significant share of voters, and the midterms will decide control of Congress. It also fits a broader legal and political fight over voting rules, with Trump continuing to argue mail ballots are vulnerable to fraud, a claim he has made repeatedly since losing the 2020 election.