Trump’s Mail-in Voting Executive Order Is Ready to Begin Its Trip Back to SCOTUS

Trump’s Mail-in Voting Order Is Blocked, Again, for Now

As I wrote a few days ago, we’re particularly focused on this battle, playing out in multiple courts, over Trump’s March executive order on mailed ballots because it remains a particularly viable way for his administration to inject chaos into the midterms. The order would require the U.S. Postal Service to make last-minute changes to how ballots are mailed, and for the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to compile “a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens” who may vote. Both provisions lay the foundation for election administration chaos — the USPS changes would be implemented just as the residents of some states begin early voting — and for Trump and his agencies to spread new election conspiracy theories and launch new, baseless investigations into how the election was conducted and who voted that could be used to meddle with its outcome.

Trump’s ill motives aside, the order is a reconceptualization of how America does elections: the Constitution leaves it to states to oversee their elections, including for federal office. It leaves no role for the federal executive branch.

And, so, as this executive order ping-pongs from the Supreme Court to various lower courts and back, we are keeping close tabs on it.

Last night, U.S. District Court judge Indira Talwani again blocked the executive order from being implemented. The Supreme Court, and then a series of lower-court rulings, had unblocked it earlier this week.

That case is now, again, likely Supreme Court bound.

Here, in a nutshell, is what happened: Ahead of Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, the justices had been considering whether states could sue to stop the order before it was implemented. The conservative majority found they could not. But while the justices were writing their ruling, the Trump administration went ahead and began implementing the executive order, a bold move that violated a lower-court injunction.

Now, the way in which the administration implements the executive order is no longer a hypothetical: USPS has laid out plans with which states must comply. This, in theory, should mean that the conservative justices are ready to engage with the executive order on the merits. “Now that the USPS has published the Final Rule, Plaintiffs’ challenges are ripe,” Talwani wrote, agreeing with plaintiffs that the USPS rule was likely to sow chaos and impose significant burdens on states.

The administration is now arguing that it’s too late — too close to the election — to put a stop to its efforts to implement the executive order, a trollish approach given everything that got us here, but one that, experts worry, the conservatives on the high court might go for.

Republicans’ Bad Situation in Georgia

Georgia is a purple state — one Trump won by 2.2% in 2024 and just barely lost in 2020 (a fact that has loomed large in his psyche and launched a half-decade of right-wing disinformation).

Despite that, Republicans seem to be in the midst of fumbling winnable, state-wide races this fall.

• In the race that has attracted the most attention, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) is up against Rep. Mike Collins (R), a man who is seemingly surrounded by so many extreme figures it is getting absurd.
• A former Collins chief of staff was dogged by allegations of violence and fired after making disgusting comments about a Matt Lauer accuser. A second chief of staff tried to collaborate with such figures as Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes to spring a Holocaust denier from jail. Collins’ daughter’s husband is an actual white supremacist influencer who, despite the media attention, continues to post. Now, the Washington Post has revealed that his PAC employed a guy who described himself online as “racist” and “fascist,” and used the term “white power.”
• I guess you might give Collins’ the benefit of the doubt, assume this is all a coincidence, but, as Layla A. Jones notes in our own coverage of this, Collins has himself made jokes that riff on far-right memes, including repeatedly invoking the idea of tossing one’s political enemies from aircraft, as far-right, 20th century Latin American dictators did.
• Let’s look at another statewide race: the Republican primary for governor was fought out between two strongly Trump-aligned candidates (a contrast to the current, popular Republican governor Brian Kemp, who has made a point of quietly resisting Trump’s influence). This year’s second-place candidate, Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, continues to be furious with the winner, healthcare executive Rick Jackson, over his primary campaign, during which Jackson sued Jones for defamation, and Jones sued Jackson. Despite similar politics, the feud between the two threatens to hurt Jackson’s election prospects.
• NOTUS reported this week that Trump offered to make Jones ambassador to Germany if he would endorse Jackson. Jones denied that report to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution but said he had no current plans to make amends. “I’m open for discussion but it’s their move to make, to have a genuine conversation about it,” Jones told AJC. “Let’s not forget they filed a defamation lawsuit against me.”

Tabs

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow amid intelligence indicating the Kremlin sees the U.S. as weakened by its war with Iran, the Washington Post reports.
• Hungary, in the midst of an inspiring turn away from right-wing authoritarianism, has elected an “anti-graft czar” to investigate what happened during Viktor Orbán’s reign — though the fact that she has no experience with this type of work has inspired controversy.
• The Trump administration is sending more frequent deportation flights to Haiti, after dropping Temporary Protected Status protections for Haitians, the New York Times reports.

Man of the Hour

It’s Chuck Edwards, the member of Congress who will likely soon be censured by his colleagues after the House Ethics Committee found numerous flagrant and bizarre examples of Edwards engaging in inappropriate conduct with two women in his office. His defense, which he released yesterday and which Nicole documented in Where Things Stand, included such lines as “an affectionate friendship is not a sexual proposition” and “poetry is not sexual misconduct.”

Are We at War

Six months today.