Supreme Court declines to lift USPS ballot injunction on mail voting

President Trump voted by mail in Florida this year, according to NPR, even as he publicly claimed mail-in voting can never be honest. In a social media post last year, Trump said he is “going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS” and claimed that “ELECTIONS CAN NEVER BE HONEST WITH MAIL IN BALLOTS/VOTING.”

The Supreme Court declined Monday to lift a federal injunction blocking the U.S. Postal Service from imposing new ballot-handling requirements tied to a Trump executive order. The high court’s ruling leaves USPS standard ballot-handling practices in place as mail voting is already underway in several states ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Under the still-blocked USPS plan, states would have been required to turn over lists of voters’ names and addresses and to use specific barcodes on ballot envelopes in order to have those ballots delivered by the Postal Service.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Boston issued a preliminary injunction against USPS, blocking the mailing agency from imposing those new ballot requirements on states. The judge found the requirements are likely illegal because the Postal Service has no authority to control mail-in voting.

Trump said he issued the call for USPS to change its rule for ballot mail as a way to stop illegal voting by non-U.S. citizens, a problem that many studies and audits show is extremely uncommon. The administration’s lawyers have provided the courts with no evidence of mail-voting fraud in the legal challenge to the USPS plan.

Trump has been a vocal critic of mail-in ballots, used by roughly one-third of voters in the last two federal elections. In 2024, the share of voters who reported casting ballots by mail was higher among Democrats (37%) than Republicans (24%), according to a national survey by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab.

Voting by mail has already begun in states including Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin, with more states to follow in the weeks ahead — including Western states such as Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, where elections are held primarily or fully with mail ballots.