Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Allow Mail-In Voting Restrictions as Ballots Roll Out
The Trump administration filed its third emergency appeal to the US Supreme Court on Sunday, September 6, 2026, asking the justices to let it restrict mail-in voting even as ballots are already reaching voters in several states. US Solicitor General John Sauer submitted the application, the latest move in an escalating legal fight over Executive Order 14399, titled "Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections," which President Trump signed on March 31, 2026 The Guardian.
The executive order instructs the US Postal Service to refuse to deliver mail-in or absentee ballots to any voter who is not listed on a state-specific registry called the Mail-in and Absentee Participation List. That list would be maintained by the Department of Homeland Security working with each state to confirm that listed individuals are citizens eligible to vote. A White House fact sheet calls this a citizenship-verification mechanism — a way to check that someone is a US citizen before a ballot is mailed to them. The USPS followed up with a Final Rule directing the Postal Service to refuse to send mail ballots unless states or local election officials submit the required voter information, including names and barcodes tied to each ballot NBC News. The Postal Service has said it is ready to enforce the restrictions if court orders blocking them are lifted The Guardian.
The legal fight has moved on an accelerating timeline. On Friday, September 4, 2026, US District Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction — a temporary court order that bars the USPS from requiring states to comply with the executive order's mail-in voting restrictions while the case proceeds. Talwani's order also allows states to voluntarily comply by submitting their mail ballot designs to the USPS for approval Democracy Docket. The administration had previously asked a US appeals court on September 1 to lift an earlier blocking order, then escalated to the Supreme Court on September 3 with a request to enforce the USPS Final Rule Reuters. The September 6 filing is the administration's third emergency application to the high court in this dispute. The court had previously allowed the plan to move forward but had not ruled on its legality The Guardian.
The administration says the urgency is logistical. Sauer told the court that ballots had already started going out in North Carolina, with Alabama set to begin on September 9 and at least five more states during the week of September 13. Nearly one-third of US voters cast their ballots by mail The Guardian. State election officials have said there is not enough time to overhaul their systems to meet the new federal directives, a practical concern that has weighed heavily in the lower courts' reasoning The Guardian.
The Supreme Court's docket reflects the complexity of the litigation. Docket 26A124, styled Trump v. California, addresses the administration's emergency application against California's challenge to the executive order. A separate docket, 26A297, concerns a stay request — a legal ask to pause a lower court's ruling — tied to the USPS Final Rule. In August, the Supreme Court opened a path for possible implementation of the executive order, though it had not decided on the merits, meaning it had not issued a final ruling on whether the order is lawful AP News. A supplemental stay brief in Trump v. California confirmed that Executive Order 14399 directed the refusal to transmit mail ballots under the specified conditions Supreme Court Docket PDF.
Democratic states and voting rights groups argue the ordered changes are unconstitutional. They contend that the executive order imposes conditions on mail-in voting that exceed the administration's authority and infringe on states' constitutional power over election administration. The Trump administration has countered by describing its mail-in ballot limits as "commonsense measures" aimed at protecting voting security and called the order blocking them "unreasoned and unlawful" The Guardian. Trump has repeatedly sought to restrict voting by mail despite having frequently used the method himself, and has falsely blamed mail balloting for his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden The Guardian.
The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has weighed in on adjacent litigation in ways that frame the broader legal landscape. In Watson v. Republican National Committee, the DOJ's Appellate Section stated that the question of a mail-voting ban for federal form registrants does not warrant review at that time, and that states generally must be in receipt of all votes within a set timeframe. The Solicitor General's filing in the same case noted that the court of appeals unanimously reversed a lower ruling and explained that voters are able to "recall" mail once sent, including ballots DOJ OSG Filing. In Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections, the DOJ noted a 2026 Illinois law requiring election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked or certified no later than election day and received within a specified period DOJ Filing.
The stakes are immediate. With the midterm election cycle already producing ballots in some jurisdictions and more states on the cusp of doing so, the Supreme Court's response to Sauer's emergency application will determine whether the USPS can begin enforcing the citizenship-verification framework or whether the existing injunctions remain in place while the lower courts proceed.
The broader context here is a collision between two competing visions of election security. The administration frames its measures as protections against fraud and ineligible voting. The challengers frame them as unconstitutional burdens on voters and states, imposed at a moment when election systems are already in motion. What the justices decide — and how quickly — will shape how millions of Americans receive their ballots this fall, and could set a precedent for how much authority a president has to reshape voting procedures by executive order.
