US Supreme Court Rejects Trump Administration Restrictions on Mail-in Voting

The United States Supreme Court has rejected restrictions that President Donald Trump sought to impose on mail-in voting for the midterm elections. The court ruled that it was unlikely the administration would succeed on the merits of its challenge regarding a procedure that would require states to compile a list of all voters receiving mail-in ballots. Only two conservative judges, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, expressed a dissenting opinion. Justice Alito argued that the Postal Service possesses broad authority to regulate postal services and likely has the power to impose the desired restrictions.

The Trump administration presented the proposal as a minor modification to postal regulations intended to prevent alleged fraud. However, lower courts had previously blocked the initiative, describing it as an unconstitutional acquisition of power that the Postal Service was unable to fully implement. Election officials noted that a complete revision was impossible just weeks before the elections, as states including Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin had already begun sending ballots.

In a post on Truth Social, President Trump criticized the decision as a disaster and a loss for the country. He claimed the court was terrified of Democrats and mentioned other recent legal defeats regarding tariffs and birthright citizenship.

Separately, a federal judge in Boston, F. Dennis Saylor, blocked a different Trump administration rule that would have limited the duration of stay in the U.S. for foreign students and journalists. Judge Saylor stated the Department of Homeland Security used incredibly weak reasoning to overturn a system that had been in place for nearly fifty years. The blocked rule would have limited F and J visas for students to four years and I visas for journalists to 240 days.