Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas expressed strong dissent on Monday after the Supreme Court refused to grant relief to President Donald Trump’s administration, which sought to lift a universal injunction blocking its mail-in ballot regulations.
In the dissent, authored by Alito and joined by Thomas, they claimed that the case’s plaintiffs were relying on arguments the court had previously deemed weak and unlikely to prevail.
Alito stated, “The Court incorrectly denies the Government’s application for a stay of a universal injunction that bars implementation of a final rule concerning election ballot mail. Some plaintiffs lack standing, and the rest are pursuing a claim that this Court has recently characterized as a ‘Hail Mary pass’ that ‘rarely succeeds.'”
He concluded his dissent by asserting that the Government had met the necessary conditions for a stay, thus expressing his respectful disagreement.
The Supreme Court’s order from Monday did not carry any signatures, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh provided a concurrence. He mentioned that while there could potentially be a future victory for Trump, it was too close to Election Day to realistically implement these new rules for the 2026 midterm elections.
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. However, applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious, violating the Administrative Procedure Act, given that state and local election officials do not have adequate time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”
He echoed Alito’s dissent by recognizing the extensive powers of the USPS in managing the collection, handling, transportation, and delivery of mail.
The proposed regulations by Trump would require federal ballot mail to be delivered in envelopes that display a specific election-mail logo, which needs to be scannable by high-speed equipment and feature a unique barcode for each voter.
Moreover, state and local election offices would have to submit their envelope designs for Postal Service approval and upload basic voter information onto an online USPS platform.
Mailings that do not comply with these USPS rules would be returned to election officials for corrections before resubmission.
