Supreme Court frees Trump to enforce mail-in voting changes ahead of midterms

The president’s attempt to overhaul mail-in voting via executive order comes as Republican-led efforts to stymie absentee ballots at the high court and Congress have floundered.WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for President Donald Trump to enforce an executive order dramatically changing mail-in voting ahead of November’s midterm elections.Trump filed an emergency application seeking to enforce the order, which would create lists of eligible voters in each state and instruct the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to verified voters.A dozen Republican-led states joined the president’s appeal, arguing a lower court overstepped by preventing the government from implementing policy changes for this year’s elections.Under the “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections” order, states would be required to update mail ballots with secure envelopes featuring unique tracking barcodes. Federal funding could be withheld from states and localities that do not comply.A Massachusetts court blocked key sections of the order at the behest of Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia, who claimed the proposed changes were unlawful and could lead to chaos ahead of November’s midterm elections.Led by California, Democratic officials argue the proposed changes posed a high risk of errors and a limited window to correct them. They claim the voter-verification and ballot-interception program was “disastrous from a practical perspective” and would likely disenfranchise voters.Even if it was possible to revise their voting systems before November, Democratic states said Trump does not have authority to grant USPS such far-reaching new powers and responsibilities. And they warned against turning the agency into a partisan instrument.“Defendants and intervenors are also wrong in suggesting that ‘the president’s ability to oversee the executive branch’ gives him carte blanche to direct executive officials to engage in any form of rulemaking, no matter how plainly unconstitutional,” the Democratic states wrote. “The duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed’ allows the president to administer laws duly enacted by Congress, not to usurp powers exclusively entrusted to states and Congress.”According to the Justice Department and Republican states, the president’s directives have yet to be implemented through the appropriate agencies. They claim the lower court inappropriately intervened based only on Trump’s policy guidance, overstepping its authority by preemptively deciding the agencies’ actions will be unlawful.“This premature injunction imposes serious irreparable harm on the federal government,” Trump wrote in his emergency application. “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.”Trump has repeatedly elevated concerns about the legitimacy of elections in recent weeks, including a primetime address from the Oval Office. Noncitizen voting is rare, but the president continues to cite the issue as justification for voting changes ahead of the November elections.Alongside his executive order, Trump has demanded that congressional Republicans take drastic measures such as ending the filibuster to pass a long-stalled bill claiming down on U.S. elections.In June, the Supreme Court shot down a different Republican-led challenge to state mail-in ballot laws that allow for post-Election Day ballot counting.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads