The Supreme Court on Monday declined to lift a lower court’s injunction against new U.S. Postal Service rules governing mail-in ballots, dealing the Trump administration a setback just months before the 2026 midterm elections.
President Donald Trump responded Tuesday with a lengthy statement condemning the decision, calling the nation’s mail-in voting system a “totally CORRUPT and out of control” and a “‘disaster,’ which is a laughing stock all over the World, and where we are the only country that has to endure such a Nation Destroying SCAM.”
He argued the ruling gives Democrats “an open field” to commit fraud through mail ballots, writing: “It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left ‘Dumocrats,’ on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do.”
Trump praised Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, the two dissenters from Monday’s unsigned order, calling them “legends.” He also pointed to other recent losses at the Court, including rulings against his tariff policies and his executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship, writing that criticizing the Court “will likely cost me dearly for years to come” but that he felt “obligation and duty” to speak out “for the America we love.”
What the rules would have required
The blocked Postal Service rules would have required federal ballot mail to carry an election-mail logo, be scannable by high-speed sorting equipment, and include a barcode unique to each voter. State and local election officials would have had to submit envelope designs to USPS for approval and upload basic voter information to an online portal. Mailings that did not comply would have been rejected and sent back to election offices for correction.
The Court’s order left the door open for the administration to prevail later. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a concurring opinion, wrote that “there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority,” but concluded that imposing it now would be unworkable.
“Applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The order effectively preserves the status quo for mail-in ballot handling through the 2026 midterms while the underlying legal fight over the Postal Service’s authority continues.
