Trump Asks Supreme Court to Let Him Rewrite Mail-In Voting Rules After Two Courts Already Blocked Him

In March, Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile citizenship lists of eligible voters for every state and instructing the Postal Service to develop new rules for mail ballots, including requiring a specific envelope for ballots and sending them only to voters on the states’ lists. This is the latest move in his broader campaign to reshape how states run their own elections. Well, 23 states and Washington, D.C. sued, and in June a federal judge in Massachusetts sided with them.

Rather than accept the loss, the administration escalated. When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to lift the block last weekend, Solicitor General D. John Sauer went straight to the Supreme Court and asked the justices to let the order take effect in nearly half the country before ballots go out this fall.

CBS News reports:

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the district court’s injunction is “extraordinary” because it prevents federal agencies from taking steps to implement Mr. Trump’s directive, which he said “merely sets forth general policy guidance” and aims to promote election integrity.

“The Executive Order functions only to direct the President’s subordinates to take appropriate and lawful action to implement the President’s policy objectives,” he wrote. “By stopping the relevant agencies and officials from implementing that Order with respect to the November 2026 federal election, the injunction operates as ’an improper intrusion by a federal court into the workings of a coordinate branch of the Government.’”

The lower courts have twice found reason to block this order from taking effect this election cycle. The administration’s answer was to ask the Supreme Court to let it happen anyway. Lose in court, escalate, and hope the clock runs out before Election Day forces the issue. It’s a familiar playbook by now.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

© The UnPopulist, 2026

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