By Hank Russell
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a coalition of attorneys general — including Letitia James of New York — who sought to block the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) final rule on mail-in voting.
As previously reported in Long Island Life & Politics, on March 31, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that he said would preserve election integrity by preventing non-U.S. citizens from voting. Part of the executive order calls for the USPS to design envelopes explicitly showing that they are being used for mail-in voting and to place a unique barcode on each envelope so that the ballots can be tracked.
LILP also reported that James joined 23 other attorneys general in a lawsuit filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on August 26, arguing that the USPS did not have the authority to oversee mail-in ballots for the federal election. The next day, on August 27, District Judge Indira Talwani granted James the temporary restraining order.
On September 14, the Supreme Court issued a decision to block the USPS’ mail-in voting rule.
In the concurring decision, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote, “In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority. But 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.”
Writing the dissenting opinion was Justice Samuel Alito. He said that the government “is likely to succeed” in appealing the decision and questioned the District Court’s decision, saying the claims by the plaintiffs “likely lack[ed] standing.”
Alito also wrote that the plaintiffs’ claims were “based on injuries to unnamed members who never filed declarations themselves. Such cryptic filings cannot be used to show standing. We have ‘required plaintiff-organizations to make specific allegations establishing that at least one identified member had suffered or would suffer harm’ and to additionally meet the ‘requirement of naming the affected members.’”
“For months, this litigation cast a cloud over the Government’s ability to issue a final rule,” Akito continued. “The District Court entered several injunctions months later prohibiting the Government from undertaking that rulemaking. Not only was the Government subject to months of premature litigation and a series of injunctions that this Court later determined were likely issued without jurisdiction, the Government had to wait nearly another full month for this Court to issue its decision so holding.”
James applauded the court’s decision.
“Today, the Supreme Court protected one of our most fundamental, inalienable rights – the right to make your voice heard at the ballot box,” she said. “This last-minute change could have thrown our elections into chaos, and I am truly relieved the Court granted this reprieve. Voters should never have to wonder whether a ballot they legally cast will be counted because the federal government suddenly changed the rules. We will keep fighting to make sure every eligible ballot is counted come November.”
LILP reached out to the White House for comment. President Donald Trump responded through his Truth Social account.
“Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the Court System took forever to give, and then blamed it, in part, on no time left to implement a solution to our totally CORRUPT and out of control Mail-In voting “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,” Trump posted.
Trump praised Alito and Clarence Thomas for ruling against “this horrible, highly political, ruling. 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 – And now they have an open field to do so! “
Without mentioning their names, Trump said that “Certain Justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved Democrats, and are totally unable to show the courage necessary to save our America.”