DemDaily: Barriers to the Ballot Box. SCOTUS Upholds Mail Vote
September 16, 2026
In a major defeat for Donald Trump, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on Monday left in place lower-court injunctions blocking the President's voter suppression Executive Order (EO) -- which would have imposed extreme restrictions on vote-by-mail in the critically consequential 2026 midterm elections.
The highly anticipated decision culminates six months of legal challenges by civil rights groups, postal unions and state Democratic Attorneys General that argued that the Constitution gives power over federal elections to the states and Congress, not to the president.
The ruling came after a final two weeks of judicial volleying between four courts, despite the fact that early voting for the November 3 elections had already begun in three states, and the deadline for printing ballots had passed in dozens more.
In the interim, the undetermined legalities injected chaos into the process for election officials and caused mass confusion among voters in early voting states.
It halts, for now, the latest chapter in the administration’s multifaceted campaign to undermine our country's electoral process and rig the system to the GOP's advantage.
| The Trump administration claimed the Executive Order, which would have illegally upended voting systems nationwide and disenfranchised millions of voters, was necessary to protect against "rampant" voter fraud. In truth, such instances are extremely rare. According to the Brennan Center, documented voter impersonation fraud occurs at a rate of roughly 0.0003% to 0.0025%, and there is literally 0% evidence of documented non-citizen voting in recent US elections. |
Background
On March 31, 2026, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order #14399: "Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections." Key components include:
* Creating Citizenship Lists: Directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to build "State Citizenship Lists" composed of individuals confirmed to be US citizens who will be above 18 at the time of an upcoming federal election.
The list was to be derived from the DHS's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, expanded to include federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security numbers, and "other relevant Federal databases." It would also allow bulk searches (rather than requiring just single-person inquiries).
* Restricting Mail-In Ballots: States "the USPS shall not transmit mail-in or absentee ballots from any individual unless those individuals have been enrolled on a state-specific list."
* Ballot Tracking: Mandates that all outbound ballot mail be marked by USPS as Official Election Mail and feature unique tracking barcodes.
The order, according to The Brennan Center for Justice, "suggests that USPS would need to refuse to deliver all mail ballots from residents of any state that either declines to share its list of approved mail and absentee voters or fails to adopt USPS's mandated ballot design changes."
* Penalties: Threatens to withhold federal funds from states that refuse to comply and directs the attorney general to "prioritize" the prosecution of election officials who violate the new rules.
The Courts
The administration, however, never substantiated the citizenship-fraud rationale behind the order in any of the resulting lawsuits, despite courts giving it the opportunity. District Court Judge Carl Nichols (DC) wrote that the government "does not point to any record evidence that there will be significant fraud"; District Court Judge Indira Talwani (MA) found "no evidence relating to fraudulent mail voting to support the rushed implementation"; and the 1st Circuit unanimously agreed there was "no record evidence of past fraud."
On September 1, a whistleblower -- described in filings as an unidentified "federal official" with USPS and represented by the legal nonprofit Whistleblower Aid -- reported that, despite a June injunction by Talwani that paused development of the EO's SAVE ballot-verification system, USPS had quietly resumed building the "Federal Ballot Mail Portal."
The whistleblower's disclosure, which came in a letter and 20-page complaint to Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), described the system as "secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed" -- built in less than three months for a job that normally takes a year or more.
The complaint warned the US Postal Service could "derail" the midterm election if it continues rushing out "untested" technology as part of Trump's push to restrict mail-in voting.
USPS rolled out its final 95-page implementation package August 21, just days before after the Supreme Court -- at that point -- lifted the block on Trump's Order on procedural grounds.
Corroborated by the whistleblower's account, Talwani ruled on August 25 that USPS had violated her injunction and converted her order into a new TRO/preliminary injunction shortly after -- the same held up by SCOTUS on Monday.
| Vote By Mail (VBM): Virtually every state, DC, and the US territories allow some form of mail-in or absentee voting, and eight states and the District conduct “all-mail" elections where every eligible voter receives a ballot. Nearly one in three votes -- 48 million -- were cast by mail in the 2024 presidential election. |
SCOTUS' September 14 brief, unsigned ruling, which found the administration "unlikely to succeed on the merits," kept in place two separate injunctions by Talwani and Nichols, barring implementation of Trump's Executive Order.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred, writing that implementing the executive order for the 2026 elections was "arbitrary and capricious" given how little time officials had to execute it before voting began. Ultra-Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
It Is Not Over: While Trump and the GOP's legal voter suppression efforts have failed for the 2026 election, no court has yet ruled on the constitutionality of the underlying order itself, and whether USPS can impose these rules for future elections -- like the 2028 presidential.
DemList will keep you informed.
Related
DemDaily: The Last Orders of the US Supreme Court 7/1/26
DemDaily: SCOTUS Reinstates Racial Discrimination in Redistricting 6/9/26
DemDaily: Voter Suppression: Trump’s Latest Victory 6/1/26
DemDaily: Supreme Court Decimates Voting Rights Act 5/4/26
DemDaily: Barriers to the Ballot Box: The SAVE America Act 3/25/26
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