The fight began in March, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order on mail-in ballots. In late August, the U.S. Postal Service followed with a rule establishing new ballot-envelope standards and requiring states to compile lists of voters eligible for mail ballots.¹

Critics warned that the policy could make voting more difficult for many people. With November’s midterms looming — and Republican majorities in both chambers at stake — a Boston federal judge blocked its use for mailed ballots. The case then reached the Supreme Court.¹

On Monday, the court left that injunction in place, preventing the rule from taking effect for the 2026 elections. The unsigned decision appears to have been 7-2, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito the only public dissenters. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of Trump’s appointees, said there was “a fair prospect” the rule could ultimately be lawful. But he concluded that imposing it now would be “arbitrary and capricious” because state and local officials lacked sufficient time to implement it reasonably before the election.¹

Trump answered a day later with a full-throated political attack. “It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself,” he wrote, claiming the decision made alleged cheating by Democrats through mail ballots easier.¹ He also accused unnamed justices of lacking the courage to “save our America,” while praising Alito and Thomas as “legends.”¹

The clash is therefore bigger than one Postal Service rule. Trump frames mail voting as a threat to electoral integrity; the court’s controlling rationale, at least for now, was narrower: election systems cannot be abruptly remade on the eve of a national vote.¹