The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Monday to allow the Trump administration to begin implementing key parts of an executive order restricting mail voting, lifting a lower court injunction that had blocked the effort in 23 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia.
The court's unsigned decision did not rule on whether the underlying policies are constitutional. It found instead that the states had filed their lawsuit too early. "The Court's disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful," the court wrote. "On that score, time will tell. But the Order itself does not harm the States, so the District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government from trying to implement it."
The ruling, reported by CBS News and Al Jazeera, clears a path for the Department of Homeland Security to move forward with a proposal to create lists of residents in each state who are eligible to vote. Trump's executive order, signed in March, also directs the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on those lists.
The White House welcomed the decision. "These are commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in a statement. "This Administration will continue to lawfully enact the agenda President Trump was elected on - which includes the safety and security of our elections."
The three liberal justices dissented. The states that sued had argued that the Constitution grants states and Congress the power to run elections, and that Trump's order could produce chaos and partisan abuse. "The consequences of allowing such transformative changes to take effect so close to this fall's elections would be extreme," lawyers for the states wrote. Dozens of state and local election officials had also asked the court to leave the order frozen while election preparations were already underway.
The case has a complicated legal history. A federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the plan for the midterm elections after the states sued. An appeals court upheld that decision. That judge later issued a second order blocking it nationwide. A separate ruling out of Washington, however, allowed the order to proceed, and an appeals court backed that ruling while still leaving room for future legal action.
The Supreme Court's order does not prevent states from filing new lawsuits once specific policies are finalized and put in place. A separate case brought by voting-rights groups remains before U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who earlier this month blocked provisions directing the Postal Service to develop new mail ballot procedures. The Justice Department is expected to argue the Supreme Court's ruling applies to that case as well.
Time is short. Some states are already weeks away from sending mail ballots to voters for the November midterms. The U.S. Postal Service laid out how it would carry out the order last week, though how much can realistically be implemented before the election remains unclear.
