Supreme Court blocks Trump administration mail-in voting restrictions

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked an executive order issued by President Donald Trump that sought to implement new restrictions on mail-in voting. The March directive would have empowered the U.S. Postal Service to enforce specific requirements, such as standardized ballot envelopes and unique barcodes, and permitted the agency to return ballots that failed to meet these criteria to election officials.

In a ruling issued on September 14, Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett joined the majority to block the order. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas were the sole dissenters. The decision follows legal challenges from 23 states arguing that election oversight authority belongs to the states rather than the federal government.

Following the ruling, President Trump criticized the decision on Truth Social, describing the justices he appointed as ‘merely a shell of their original selves’ and stating they were ‘not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court.’ He characterized the decision as a ‘horrible, highly political ruling.’