News/Commentary

Supreme Court rejects Trump’s last-minute bid to change mail voting before midterms

September 15, 2026 | | Print Article

The high court landed a blow on election integrity in 2026, while the dissent from one of their own reminded the jurists of their own “Hail Mary pass” assertion on mail-in ballots.

Lawfare once again scratched a tally in the win column for leftists Monday in the concerted effort to stop President Donald Trump’s administration from curbing the known and documented issues with widespread mail-in balloting. Denying an application for stay in the case of U.S. Postal Service v. California on a 7-2 split, the Supreme Court, at the very least, delayed implementation of the president’s restrictions until after the midterms.

Writing a concurrence for the brief denial from the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh acknowledged, “In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority.”

“But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections,” he added to back his support for the stay.

Should Kavanaugh’s ruling prove prescient, then the plaintiffs in the case — which include multiple states and activist organizations — succeeded in staving off Trump’s action on mail-in ballots for the pivotal midterm elections, ordering the USPS to use a list of citizens kept by the Department of Homeland Security to verify distribution as a means to help prevent illegal voting.

Joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent, thoroughly backing his points that were summed up, “Some of the plaintiffs lack standing, while the remainder are pursuing a claim that this Court has recently called a ”Hail Mary pass’ that ‘rarely succeeds.””

ADVERTISEMENT

“The Government has made the showings necessary for a stay, so I respectfully dissent,” he went on.

The latest in the fight on election integrity came less than three weeks after Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani followed the Supreme Court’s lifting of a nationwide injunction against Trump’s executive order with her own order in a companion case.

Talwani enjoined the USPS from “initiating … rulemaking” on the executive order, claiming, “Plaintiff States face irreparable harm where they are required to comply with a likely unconstitutional regulation for which compliance is practically impossible as to the 2026 midterm elections, now little more than two months away.”

Naturally, a victory lap ensued, which included elected officials from the states where mail-in ballots proved most concerning.

In a statement, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) expressed, “I am thankful that SCOTUS saw Trump’s executive order for what it was: a disgusting overreach from the federal government. By ruling against it, SCOTUS has effectively ruled in favor of American democracy.”

ADVERTISEMENT

On the flip side, supporters of election integrity measures by the president viewed the latest action from the Supreme Court as evidence the majority doesn’t “want us to have a country anymore.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Kevin Haggerty
Latest posts by Kevin Haggerty (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles