The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to allow federal agencies to move forward with new mail-in voting policies.
The application seeks to lift a lower court ruling that blocked, in nearly half of all states and the District of Columbia, two parts of an executive order from March that directed the U.S. Postal Service to create mail ballot rules and the Department of Homeland Security to compile a national database of eligible voters.
Attorneys for the administration argued that an injunction against the policies is “premature” because the agencies have not yet implemented the executive order, which gave them “substantial discretion” to do so.
“Accordingly, much remains uncertain as to what a final USPS rule might include or what the contents or uses of any DHS lists might be,” the filing says.
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And, with fewer than 100 days until the midterm elections, the administration said it does not have time to let the lower court process play out first.
“Even if the agencies’ implementation plans end up being entirely lawful, there is not enough time to obtain ordinary appellate relief from the injunction in order to carry them out before the November election, especially given that any such plans will need to be implemented well before November given the timing of election procedures concerning voter-roll verification and mail voting,” the filing says.
Efforts to implement any DHS rule or USPS rule would need to begin as soon as early- to mid-August to be in place for the 2026 election, the filing argued, “particularly given that absentee and mail-in voting begin (in some States) several weeks prior to Election Day.”
The order would require USPS to regulate the redesign of mail-in ballots and envelopes. A state must also notify USPS if “it intends to allow for mail-in or absentee ballots to be transmitted by the USPS,” 90 days before the election, and any mail-in ballots submitted must be checked through a preapproved list of eligible voters.
Under the order, DHS and the Social Security Administration would develop the approved list of voters and transmit them to states to develop their “State Citizenship List.”
The president has said the new policies will help safeguard elections from noncitizen voting — though noncitizen registration is rare, according to experts.
The Trump administration’s emergency filing comes after a federal appeals court decision Saturday upheld a ruling that temporarily halted the new regulations in states that filed a lawsuit, which argued that Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate elections rather than the president.
The Supreme Court asked to hear from the states who brought the lawsuit by Aug. 3.
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