Election officials warn of potential chaos after SCOTUS brings Trump’s mail-voting order back to life

Election officials warn of potential chaos after SCOTUS brings Trump’s mail-voting order back to life In its Monday ruling, the high court refrained from declaring Trump’s order lawful - Bookmark - CommentsGo to comments A preliminary Supreme Court decision allowing President Donald Trump’s directive restricting mail-in voting has cast deep uncertainty over the voting process used by nearly a third of the American electorate, even if it fails to alter a single procedure ahead of the November midterms. In its Monday ruling, the high court refrained from declaring Trump’s order lawful. Instead, it determined that Democratic-led states acted prematurely in persuading a federal judge in Boston to block the measure back in June. That ruling reopens the legal battlefield on an exceptionally tight schedule, with North Carolina poised to dispatch the first mail ballots to overseas and military voters on Sept. 4. A separate court injunction preventing the U.S. Postal Service from modifying its operations to enforce Trump’s order remains active. However, the administration submitted a late-Monday motion to dissolve that hold and published new Postal Service guidelines that could take effect Tuesday if legal barriers are removed. Under those regulations, jurisdictions would be forced to adopt precise formatting for mail ballot envelopes—potentially requiring complete redesigns—and to use an electronic system to report mail voters to the Postal Service. Failure to conform to these rules would result in mail ballots being withheld from distribution. Critics expressed dismay at the prospect of implementing such extensive changes in days. Dissenting from the decision, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the ruling "needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections." David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, shared that sentiment, observing that the court’s majority "seemed to create complete chaos leading up to the midterm elections" and adding that meeting the new criteria at this junction would be "impossible" for states. Local election authorities are already struggling with the immediate implications. Jesse Salinas, registrar for Yolo County in California and head of the state’s election officers association, pointed out that ballots in California begin mailing in 11 days, and his county has already printed its envelopes. "You look at the timeline, and it’s a bit chaotic," Salinas said, adding that he lacks clarity on which envelope templates meet the new standards. He doubted any last-minute overhaul could be executed, stating: "The capacity to do that, I just don’t see it,". Tammy Patrick, chief program officer at the Elections Center—a national network of 2,500 election administrators—emphasized that no state currently operates under the framework the administration demands. "There isn’t a single state that does their elections in a way that this postal rule lays out," Patrick said in an interview. "There has been this assumption that this is not going to happen because it could not happen the way it’s laid out, because no one does it this way." In Nevada, where every registered voter receives a mail ballot by default, Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said the Postal Service misdelivered 36 mail ballots during the state's June primary election. "They’re going to come in within seven days and build a massive database that has 100% accuracy?" Aguilar asked. "It is impossible to implement this system in that time frame." Although Trump regularly casts his own ballot by mail, he has consistently attempted to dismantle the practice for the general public. Following his 2020 election defeat, Trump falsely attributed the outcome to mail-in voting and promoted unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. After federal judges blocked his initial attempts to restrict voting via executive order last year, he crafted his latest directive after broader voting legislation stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition. Data from the Election Assistance Commission shows that 29% of voters submitted mail ballots in 2024. Use of the method has split along party lines since Trump began attacking it in 2020, with Democrats opting for mail voting at higher rates than Republicans. Nonetheless, the president has struggled to enforce sweeping changes because the U.S. Constitution assigns authority over election procedures to individual states and, in federal contests, to Congress. Legal analysts view implementing Trump's order before November as highly improbable. The Supreme Court explicitly noted in its unsigned order that it had not ruled on the measure's constitutionality, and the administration’s victories thus far have rested on arguments about the timing of the challenges. Opponents are already preparing new legal filings after the final rule was published Friday night. Becker, a former Department of Justice attorney who co-authored a book refuting claims surrounding the 2020 election, expressed confidence that upcoming court proceedings will block the directive from taking effect for the midterms. UCLA law professor Rick Hasen similarly noted following the decision: "This doesn’t necessarily mean anything in terms of November." Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller cautioned that the ruling guarantees intense legal friction in the coming days. "It puts courts in a terrible place, because whatever happens is super close to the election," Muller said. "If it permits it, it creates super disruption for the states. If it suspends it, it visibly angers the administration." Hasen reiterated that enforcing the regulation before November remains virtually unimaginable. "Both legal and practical reasons make this practically impossible to enforce," Hasen said regarding Trump’s mail voting directive. Across the country, elections are administered across thousands of decentralized local offices, many staffed without full-time personnel. Patrick emphasized the heavy strain placed on those tasked with running the polls. "Election officials just feel like punching bags at this moment because they plan one way of conducting their elections, and have contingency plans if a fire breaks out, or one location loses power," Patrick said. "But how do you plan for something that affects one-third, one half, or all of your voters?" 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