Trump Loses Mail-In Ballot Case. Justices Say States Wouldn’t Have Enough Time To Make Changes.

The Supreme Court rejected President Trump’s plan to change how mail ballots are sent, saying states would not have enough time to make the changes and questioning the merits of the case.

The rule would essentially require states to submit lists of eligible voters to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Ballots that would come from people not on the list could then be withheld.

The rule would require that federal ballot mail be sent in envelopes with three special features: an election-mail logo, the ability to be scanned using high-speed processing equipment, and a specialized barcode unique to each voter.

Critics of the plan said there were numerous opportunities for legitimate voters to be disenfranchised through errors, that it would create opportunities for abuse, and that states would not have enough time to implement the changes before the 2026 midterm elections without possibly disenfranchising people.

“Trump’s attempt to sabotage the 2026 elections has failed. Courts have blocked Trump from using the Postal Service to choose which voters could receive a mail ballot,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said. “Trump will continue to fail in his efforts to take control of the 2026 midterms. We will fight every attempt to suppress the vote or unlawfully federalize elections.”

Colorado was one of 24 states and the District of Columbia that sued to stop the USPS rules from taking effect. The rules were in response to an executive order issued by Trump that specifically focused on federal elections and supposed issues of fraud.

The administration had sought an emergency stay to allow the rules to go into effect. That was rejected. Trump has repeatedly claimed that widespread voter fraud led to his defeat in 2020; however, he has never presented evidence to support the claims.

In fact, more than 60 lawsuits were filed regarding President Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. None of the lawsuits were found to have merit, despite some being heard by judges who had been appointed by Republicans, including Trump himself. According to the Campaign Legal Center: “The various claims of evidence alleging a stolen 2020 election have been exhaustively investigated, litigated and found to be without merit.”

One high-profile case involving election fraud claims almost went to trial in 2023. Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for defamation over election-fraud claims the network reported. Rather than proceed with the case and show their reporting had merit, Fox admitted it promoted lies and agreed to pay Dominion $787 million.

Regardless, Trump has continued to maintain that the U.S. election system is not secure and needs safeguarding. Trump railed against the Supreme Court decision on social media.

“Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the Court System took forever to give, and then blamed it, in part, on no time left to implement a solution to our totally CORRUPT and out of control Mail-In voting ‘disaster,’ which is a laughing stock all over the World, and where we are the only country that has to endure such a Nation Destroying SCAM,” Trump wrote.

“It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left ‘Dumocrats,’ on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do – And now they have an open field to do so! The Supreme Court has really let our Country down!,” the President said in a lengthy post.

A majority of the Supreme Court has been appointed by Republican presidents, with Trump appointing three himself.

The majority opinion of the court said that it would not issue a stay in part because the case was “unlikely to succeed on the merits.” Justice Brett

Kavanaugh voted with the majority, but in a concurring opinion stated that there was a “fair prospect” the proposed rule changes could succeed. But, Kavanaugh wrote that applying the rule to the 2026 elections would be “arbitrary and capricious” because states wouldn’t have enough time to implement it.

In a dissenting opinion, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said that the rule was likely to succeed. They wrote, “The Postal Service has broad authority to regulate the mail. It holds the ‘general powers’ to ‘adopt, amend, and repeal such rules and regulations.'”