The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a lower-court injunction that had blocked President Trump's executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to voters who appear on a federal eligibility list. The unsigned order clears the way for the administration to enforce the policy ahead of the November midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress.
The court split 6-3 along ideological lines, with the three liberal justices dissenting. The ruling is a preliminary win for the administration—it removes the injunction while litigation continues in lower courts but does not resolve the underlying legal questions about the order's validity.
The injunction the court lifted had covered 23 states and Washington, D.C. Those jurisdictions had sued to block the executive order, arguing it exceeded presidential authority over mail voting procedures. With the stay lifted, the Postal Service can begin implementing the ballot delivery restrictions while that case works through the courts.
The executive order instructs the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to voters whose names appear on a federal eligibility list. Critics of the order argue it effectively creates a new layer of voter verification beyond what existing state law requires. Supporters argue it closes what they describe as a gap in ballot integrity safeguards.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett form the conservative majority. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, though the court's unsigned order did not detail the dissenters' reasoning.
The administration argued in its emergency application that allowing the lower court's block to remain in place would prevent the executive branch from enforcing a lawful presidential directive on election administration. The states that sued countered that rushing implementation before the midterms would cause immediate and irreversible harm to voters who rely on mail-in ballots.
Mail-in voting expanded sharply during the 2020 election cycle and remained elevated in 2022 and 2024. Any restriction on who receives ballots through the Postal Service directly affects the number of voters who cast ballots by mail rather than in person. The precise scope of the federal eligibility list the executive order references—and which voters fall off it—was a central point of dispute in the lower court proceedings.
The litigation now returns to the lower courts for a full ruling on the merits. The Supreme Court's action Monday addresses only the injunction, not the final outcome. If a lower court ultimately strikes down the order, the administration would face a new legal fight to preserve it. If the order survives lower-court review, the administration will have established a new federal role in directing how the Postal Service handles election mail.
