The latest in the fight over mail-in ballots marked a temporary win for President Donald Trump as opponents vowed to keep waging lawfare.
Election Day may not be until November, but with mail-in voting and early voting, election season will officially be underway in some states by early September. As deadlines fast approach, the Supreme Court issued a ruling Monday in favor of the president, staying a lower court’s injunction, thus allowing the U.S. Postal Service to adhere to an executive order on election integrity.
While the appeals process continues, the 6-3 ruling found the majority stating, “The Government has asked us to stay the injunction, arguing that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its jurisdictional argument, that the injunction is causing it irreparable harm, and that the equities do not favor leaving the injunction in place while the Government’s appeal is pending. We agree and grant the stay.”
The Court did not decide whether Trump’s order is lawful. Instead, it ruled the states likely sued too early: the order directs federal agencies to act but itself imposes no requirements on states, making their claimed injuries too speculative. pic.twitter.com/xc0cP9pZOl
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) August 24, 2026
In explaining the decision, the majority determined that the district court lacked jurisdiction to bar the government from attempting to implement the executive order because there was no harm to the states. At the same time, the majority found the “injunction is likely to irreparably harm the Government if it remains in place while the appellate process runs its course.”
Signed in March, the “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections” order allows for the U.S. Postal Service to use a list of citizens kept by the Department of Homeland Security to verify its distribution of mail-in ballots.
As previously reported, the Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani had issued a preliminary injunction on the order earlier in August barring the USPS from “refusing to transmit mail-in or absentee ballots.”
Based on Monday’s action by the high court, the administration moved forward with a request to have that nationwide injunction lifted.
🚨 Hours after its Supreme Court victory, the Trump administration is asking a federal judge to immediately lift her separate nationwide injunction that still blocks President Trump’s executive order directing USPS to adopt new mail-ballot rules. pic.twitter.com/u4RHzyOXwS
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) August 25, 2026
Counted among the states suing against the president’s efforts at election integrity, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) reacted with a promise of continued efforts to block the order, insisting, “Every eligible voter gets a mail-in ballot here — and we’ll fight to keep it that way.”
First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli responded, “These measures wouldn’t be necessary if states like California didn’t allow non-citizens to easily register to vote and get mail ballots.”
“We are actively identifying ineligible citizens on California’s dirty voter rolls and will soon announce criminal arrests related to our election fraud investigation,” he added.
These measures wouldn’t be necessary if states like California didn’t allow non-citizens to easily register to vote and get mail ballots.
We are actively identifying ineligible citizens on California’s dirty voter rolls and will soon announce criminal arrests related to our… https://t.co/t0wnNAyY9w
— F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) August 25, 2026
Meanwhile, in addition to the 10-page ruling by the majority and a mere four pages of dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined by Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson penned her own 23-page dissent where she accused the government of endeavoring to “foment chaos ahead of the November elections.”
The ruling added a dig at Jackson’s dissent, stating, “Fighting this Court’s precedent, JUSTICE JACKSON maintains that ‘[t]he Government is not injured in the slightest’ because the Order contemplates that the Government will engage in ‘patently unlawful conduct.'”
“That, however, remains to be seen,” continued the majority. “And though JUSTICE JACKSON wishes it were otherwise, an applicant can show ‘irreparable harm from a threshold error without also showing that, at the end of the day, it will prevail on the underlying merits.’ Such harm exists here because the injunction meddles in the ‘workings of’ the Executive Branch, preventing it from even trying to lawfully implement the Order.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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