{"id":42938,"date":"2026-08-27T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=42938"},"modified":"2026-11-04T00:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T08:28:18","slug":"narrow-mail%e2%80%91in-voting-ruling-by-supreme-court-adds-uncertainty-to-midterm-elections-without-addressing-constitutionality-of-trumps-executive-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/narrow-mail%e2%80%91in-voting-ruling-by-supreme-court-adds-uncertainty-to-midterm-elections-without-addressing-constitutionality-of-trumps-executive-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Narrow mail\u2011in voting ruling by Supreme Court adds uncertainty to midterm elections without addressing constitutionality of Trump\u2019s executive order"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

John J. Martin<\/a>, Quinnipiac University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reaction to a procedural ruling by the Supreme Court on Aug. 24, 2026<\/a>, was immediate and sharp<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conservative justices\u2019 decision in the 6-3 ruling<\/a> to lift a block on implementation of President Donald Trump\u2019s March 2026 executive order imposing restrictions on mail voting<\/a> had voting rights advocates and many state officials angry and alarmed. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in the ruling, saying it would spark a \u201cKafkaesque nightmare\u201d that \u201cneedlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Conversation\u2019s politics and legal affairs editor Naomi Schalit talked with Quinnipiac University election law scholar John J. Martin<\/a> about the ruling and what it signals may be ahead.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the background to the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling on Aug. 24?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in March, President Trump issued an executive order<\/a> that was meant to, in his words, maintain \u201cpublic confidence in election outcomes\u201d and \u201cenhance election integrity\u201d in mail and absentee voting in federal elections. There are a few provisions that were included in that executive order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first would require the Department of Homeland Security to maintain a state citizenship list of residents in those states who are U.S. citizens, above the age of 18, and therefore eligible to vote in federal elections. The Department of Homeland Security would share these lists with each state at least 60 days prior to each federal election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next provision orders the U.S. attorney general to prioritize the investigation and the prosecution of state and local election officials who issue federal ballots to ineligible voters, such as noncitizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
President Donald Trump signs an executive order on March 31, 2026, cracking down on mail-in voting ahead of midterm elections. Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next, Trump ordered the U.S. Postal Service to devise rules that could substantially alter the ability for states to use mail and absentee ballots in federal elections. What this could look like is, for example, a requirement that a mail ballot being used in a federal election has to look a particular way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The executive order also gives states the option to provide the Postal Service at least 60 days before a federal election a list of voters entitled to vote by mail or by absentee ballot. But that deadline conflicts with a federal rule<\/a> that states must give voters the opportunity to register to vote at least 30 days prior to an election. So states might not even know 60 days prior to an election who was entitled to use an absentee or mail ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the big one is that the executive order directs the U.S. Postal Service to not transmit any mail or absentee ballots from voters in federal elections who do not appear on a mail-in or absentee voter list compiled by the service, presumably based on the list being provided to it by the states, although the executive order isn\u2019t fully clear on this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, if a voter isn\u2019t on that list, the Postal Service can just ditch that person\u2019s ballot?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The executive order tells the Postal Service that it should not transmit that ballot over mail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Supreme Court did not rule on the legality of the executive order, did it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. A number of states sued the Trump administration<\/a> pretty quickly after this executive order was issued, arguing that the president simply doesn\u2019t have the authority to implement these policies. The states specifically asked for a preliminary injunction in federal court, which allows the court to pause the government\u2019s actions before the case is fully resolved. The lower court ultimately issued the preliminary injunction<\/a>, temporarily blocking the implementation of the executive order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration argued<\/a> the states lacked something called standing, which requires a plaintiff to suffer an actual or imminent injury in order to bring a case in federal court. Accordingly, the preliminary injunction should not have been issued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court ultimately agreed with the Trump administration<\/a> and contended that because a lot of the executive order either required the states to do nothing, or had yet to be fully realized, the states\u2019 case here was premature. They had yet to suffer an injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not permanent that the states do not have standing. It\u2019s that they did not have standing at this moment until the rules to come out of this executive order had been put into effect. Is that correct?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s correct. So, theoretically, if the Postal Service were to propose a rule that would forbid the transmission of ballots that don\u2019t meet their standards, and then that rule is ultimately adopted, then the states would have standing to bring this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Constitution gives the states the power<\/a> to administer elections. What power is the president asserting here that would legitimately allow him, or the executive, to demand these changes?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Constitution certainly makes states the default administrators of elections<\/a>, and that includes federal, state and local elections. The federal government plays some roles<\/a> in regulating elections, with the Constitution allowing Congress the ability to override states\u2019 regulations of the procedural aspects of congressional elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court has also found<\/a> that Congress has some authority to regulate certain aspects of presidential elections, such as in the area of campaign finance. And under the 14th and 15th amendments<\/a>, Congress has the ability to implement laws that fulfill the equal protection clause or the 15th Amendment\u2019s prohibition against racial discrimination in elections. That\u2019s how we get something like the Voting Rights Act<\/a>. And that can apply to federal, state and local elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But states still remain the predominant administrator of elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the decision would create a \u2018Kafkaesque nightmare\u2019 that \u2018needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections.\u2019 Alex Wong\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And the president\u2019s role in elections?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to find any constitutional source<\/a> that backs up the idea that the president has unilateral authority to decide how elections are run, even federal elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the strongest argument you can make in this case is that the president has authority over officers in the executive branch<\/a> of the federal government. So the president could certainly direct executive officers, such as the postmaster general, to do things or not do things. But it doesn\u2019t mean that the president can tell these officers to just do whatever the president wants in violation of the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a very long way to say that the president really doesn\u2019t seem to have authority to be doing what he\u2019s doing right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this was a procedural decision by the Supreme Court; there\u2019s also a similar case brought by voting rights groups that they may consider. In the end, is everybody just playing a waiting game for the substance of this executive order to get to the Supreme Court to have the Supreme Court say sorry, President Trump, you can\u2019t do it, case closed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court cannot avoid deciding this on the merits of the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of how and when this all proceeds, will it have an effect on upcoming midterms?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Election officials need to know how they\u2019re supposed to manage their elections, and they need to know this months in advance. They want to know: Are we actually able to implement mail voting, or absentee voting, the way that we\u2019ve always done it? Or is this executive order going to completely throw a monkey wrench into the process, and now we have to rethink everything, and we have to wait until we receive a list from the U.S. Postal Service confirming that the voters that we believe are entitled to these ballots are, in fact, entitled to these ballots?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And voters might be fearful that if they try to vote by mail it won\u2019t be counted. That could discourage people from voting through a process that has made it easier and more straightforward to vote for certain segments of the population \u2013 and really everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John J. Martin<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Law, Quinnipiac University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John J. Martin, Quinnipiac University The reaction to a procedural ruling by the Supreme Court on Aug. 24, 2026, was immediate and sharp. The conservative justices\u2019 decision in the 6-3 ruling to lift a block on implementation of President Donald Trump\u2019s March 2026 executive order imposing restrictions on mail voting had voting rights advocates and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":42939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8025,46,295,10,296,36,4,38],"tags":[17300,17964,10333,12658,1900,11600,885,891,886,860,17963,1666],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42940,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42938\/revisions\/42940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}