Supreme Court OKs Trump order on mail-in ballots for midterms

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to enforce new restrictions on mail-in voting. In an unsigned 6-3 ruling, the high court granted Trump’s request for emergency relief. It lifted a Massachusetts-based court’s injunction that blocked Trump’s executive order ahead of this year’s midterms. However, the court left the executive order open to future legal challenges.

A group of 23 states and the District of Columbia previously challenged Trump’s mail-in voting restrictions. The order in March instructed authorities to create state citizenship lists of eligible voters and directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to verified voters.

The court’s decision marked a major win for the security of American elections, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told WORLD in a statement. Trump’s order included commonsense measures protecting the security of mail-in ballots, she said.

What did the court’s ruling say? The Supreme Court said the states filed their lawsuit against the order too soon. The Massachusetts court acted prematurely by issuing a ruling before federal agencies had even drawn up plans for implementing the executive order. As the Supreme Court did not evaluate whether the order itself was lawful, it left paths open for the legal battle to continue.

Is the legal battle over? While the Supreme Court’s order was a setback, it was not the final word, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. California Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to launch a new challenge to the Trump administration’s order on mail-in voting. The 23 states previously argued that they and Congress, not the president, have authority to set election rules.

Did any justices dissent? Three justices issued two dissents. The Supreme Court’s decision merely postponed addressing whether Trump’s order was lawful, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in one. The high court took its eye off the ball by focusing on a technical legal argument rather than the effect Trump’s order will have on the November elections, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said in a separate dissent.

Dig deeper: Read my report on Trump’s previous appeal to the Supreme Court to learn more about how the order functions.