Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett greet President Donald Trump after his address to a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
The U.S. Supreme Court turned down the administration's emergency bid to implement new U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail-in ballot rules in time for the midterm elections, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh still offered a "fair prospect" of hope for President Donald Trump's "election integrity" agenda moving forward.
Late Monday, the court finally acted on the DOJ's application for a stay pending appeal of Massachusetts-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani's "universal injunction," finding the government was "unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge."
Ten days earlier, the Barack Obama-appointed jurist barred USPS from "implementing mandatory sections of its final rule," despite the administration's assertions that "modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements for federal-election ballots sent via U.S. Mail" were workable, lawful, and would help "deter and catch voter fraud[.]"
After the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a second time declined to disturb one of Talwani's injunctions, the Supreme Court was flooded with filings back and forth between the government, the League of Women Voters, and blue states led by California. The plaintiff voting advocacy group and blue state attorneys general repeatedly warned "a substantial number of voters" — including overseas military and their family members — could be disenfranchised if the justices allowed the "unconstitutional" final rule's implementation.
But several amici curiae — or friends of the court — also weighed in with briefs, including a filing from current and former state and local election officials who said implementing the rule at the state level could not be done, as "ballots are already going into the mail" in some states with others soon to follow.
The amici did not take a position on whether USPS had authority to "promulgate" the final rule following Trump's executive order, instead noting the high court could opt to punt on the merits until after the 2026 election but before 2028.
This is the door Kavanaugh chose and left open when briefly concurring in the stay denial.
"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. See 39 U. S. C. §401(2)," the justice wrote. "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."
"For that reason, I concur in the denial of the application for stay," Kavanaugh added.
Justice Samuel Alito penned the only dissent, and he was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas in blaming this result on "delay" from the plaintiffs' "premature litigation" and Talwani's "series of injunctions that this Court later determined were likely issued without jurisdiction."
There, Alito referred to the Supreme Court's action on Aug. 24 granting the administration a stay of an injunction Talwani issued before the USPS published its final rule.
"In April, the plaintiff States sued to challenge the President's internal directive to subordinates mandating a rulemaking. For months, this litigation cast a cloud over the Government's ability to issue a final rule," Alito wrote. "The District Court entered several injunctions months later prohibiting the Government from undertaking that rulemaking."
"Not only was the Government subject to months of premature litigation and a series of injunctions that this Court later determined were likely issued without jurisdiction, the Government had to wait nearly another full month for this Court to issue its decision so holding," the dissent went on.
In his view, another stay should have been granted on Monday, because the Trump administration "has a strong interest in enforcing the rule, and implementing it will also 'enhance the visibility of Federal Ballot Mail' in order to better detect election fraud."
"Practical" concerns raised by the opposition were "not enough," the conservative justice said.
"On the other side of the balance, the plaintiff States invoke the practical effects of implementing the rule close to the midterm elections," Alito stated. "I take that problem very seriously, but it is not enough to convince me to deny the application."
League of Women Voters CEO Celina Stewart praised the Supreme Court's majority for declining to "throw our elections into chaos just weeks before Election Day."
"The Postal Service exists to deliver Americans' mail — not to rewrite election rules, demand voters' personal information, or decide which ballots make it through the system. This was an extraordinary attempt to interfere with voting in all 50 states, and voters should never have been put in this position. Voters should never be caught in the middle of a political power warfare," Stewart said in a statement. "The League fought back, and we will keep fighting because the fundamental right to vote cannot depend on the whims of any president or federal agency. Voters decide elections. Period."
Earlier on Monday, a Trump-appointed judge in Washington, D.C., issued an injunction of his own, siding with Democratic Party plaintiffs.
"[T]he record demonstrates that the Rule will make voting by mail more difficult and, for some voters, effectively foreclose that option altogether," U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols ruled.