WASHINGTON — Casting a decisive blow against President Donald Trump’s hopes of exercising federal control over the midterm elections, the Supreme Court on Monday prevented a U.S.Postal Service regulation concerning mail-in ballots from going into effect.The court in a brief order rejected an emergency application the Trump administration filed seeking to block a lower court ruling that said the regulation was most likely unlawful.
The court appeared to be divided 7-2, with two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissenting.The measure would have imposed requirements on states for sending out mail-in ballots to voters.Typically, the Postal Service has no such role.Implementing those significant changes just weeks before the election would most likely have caused major problems, and advocates feared it would make it harder for millions of Americans to cast their ballots.Time was already running out for the rule to be implemented, with North Carolina sending out ballots Sept.
4 and other states soon to follow.There were also questions about whether the Postal Service even had the technical means to put it into effect.Trump frequently rails against the widespread use of mail-in ballots as part of his broader complaints, offered without evidence, that the election system is rife with fraud.Challengers, including various states led by California and nonprofit advocacy groups headed by the League of Women Voters, say the rule would cause unnecessary disruption ahead of the election and prevent people from voting.Under the new rule, states would have to submit lists of eligible voters to the Postal Service, which would then verify that ballots were being sent to people on that list before it delivered them.
States would also have to comply with directions about envelope design.Trump’s initial order envisioned the federal government’s creating and sending the Postal Service lists of citizens and forcing it to send ballots to those people, but ...