SCOTUS Mail Ballot Ruling May be Chaos 08/25 06:02

   The Supreme Court's decision giving preliminary approval for President 
Donald Trump's order restricting mail voting may not lead to a single election 
procedure changing during the November midterms, but it has already thrown into 
uncertainty the method that nearly one-third of the country uses to vote.

   (AP) -- The Supreme Court's decision giving preliminary approval for 
President Donald Trump's order restricting mail voting may not lead to a single 
election procedure changing during the November midterms, but it has already 
thrown into uncertainty the method that nearly one-third of the country uses to 
vote.

   Rather than saying that Trump's order is legal, the high court said Monday 
it was too early for Democratic-run states to challenge it in June, when they 
convinced a federal judge in Boston to freeze the order for November's 
election. That effectively restarts the legal fight over the order in an 
incredibly compressed timeline, with initial ballots scheduled to be sent to 
North Carolina's overseas and military voters in just over a week, on Sept. 4.

   A second injunction barring the U.S. Postal Service from making changes to 
comply with Trump's directive remains in effect. Still, the administration late 
Monday filed a motion asking that the second hold be removed, and has posted 
new regulations from the Postal Service that would go into effect Tuesday if 
the legal pathway is fully cleared.

   That new rule requires specific formatting for envelopes containing mail 
ballots -- which may force some jurisdictions to completely revise theirs -- 
and makes states use an electronic system to identify to the Postal Service who 
is voting by mail. If states don't comply with the rule, their mail ballots 
won't get sent.

   The prospect of such a potential sweeping overhaul in mere days boggled 
critics' minds. In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the 
decision "needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm 
elections."

   David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & 
Research, agreed, saying the majority "seemed to create complete chaos leading 
up to the midterm elections" and it'd be "impossible" for states to comply with 
the new rules at this late date.

   Some ballots for the November election are set to go out within days

   Jesse Salinas, the registrar of Yolo County in California and president of 
that state's association of election officers, noted that ballots in his state 
start going out in 11 days and his county already printed its envelopes.

   "You look at the timeline, and it's a bit chaotic," Salinas said, noting he 
doesn't know precisely which envelope designs comply with the new rules.

   He dismissed the idea of a last-minute revision in procedures. "The capacity 
to do that, I just don't see it," Salinas said.

   Tammy Patrick, chief program officer at the Elections Center, an association 
of 2,500 election officers, warned that it's impossible for any state to comply 
with the rule and that no one she talked to has tried.

   "There isn't a single state that does their elections in a way that this 
postal rule lays out," Patrick said in an interview. "There has been this 
assumption that this is not going to happen because it could not happen the way 
it's laid out, because no one does it this way."

   Cisco Aguilar, the Democratic Secretary of State in Nevada, where every 
registered voter gets a mail ballot, noted the post office had already 
misdelivered three dozen mail ballots from his state's June primary.

   "They're going to come in within seven days and build a massive database 
that has 100% accuracy?" Aguilar said in disbelief. "It is impossible to 
implement this system in that time frame."

   Trump votes by mail, but has sought to curb it for others

   Trump has long sought to make voting by mail largely impossible, though he 
himself has repeatedly cast his ballots by mail.

   Trump falsely blamed his 2020 loss on mail voting and spun up baroque 
conspiracy theories that he's tried to prove while back in office. Judges 
blocked him from creating new voting restrictions by executive order last year, 
and he only issued his latest order after his bill to revamp voting procedures 
stalled in the Senate amidst Democratic opposition.

   The Election Assistance Commission found that 29% of voters in 2024 cast 
their ballots through the mail. Democrats are more likely to use mail voting 
than Republicans, a reflection of how the process has become polarized since 
Trump began attacking it in 2020. Still, the president has to date been unable 
to make the sweeping changes he's sought because the Constitution grants 
control of voting rules to states, and in federal elections, to Congress -- not 
the president.

   Legal experts stressed that's why they view it as unlikely Trump's order 
will actually be implemented. Not only did the majority in the Supreme Court's 
unsigned order note that it hasn't determined whether the measure is 
constitutional, but every victory the administration has won so far has only 
been because it's argued that it's premature to talk about its 
constitutionality. Opponents are already weighing new lawsuits since the final 
rule was published Friday night.

   More litigation is expected

   Becker, a former Department of Justice lawyer who co-wrote a book debunking 
Trump's 2020 election lies, added that he expects the next round of litigation 
to keep the order from being implemented in November. Rick Hasen, a UCLA law 
professor, said after the ruling: "This doesn't necessarily mean anything in 
terms of November."

   Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, said the Supreme Court still 
ensured a fraught court battle in the coming days.

   "It puts courts in a terrible place, because whatever happens is super close 
to the election," Muller said. "If it permits it, it creates super disruption 
for the states. If it suspends it, it visibly angers the administration."

   Hasen said it's inconceivable that the regulation will impact voters in 
November.

   "Both legal and practical reasons make this practically impossible to 
enforce," he said of Trump's mail voting order.

   Elections are run by local officials in thousands of scattered offices, many 
of which don't even have a full-time employee. Patrick said that those who work 
in the field have been left reeling.

   "Election officials just feel like punching bags at this moment because they 
plan one way of conducting their elections, and have contingency plans if a 
fire breaks out, or one location loses power," Patrick said. "But how do you 
plan for something that affects one-third, one half, or all of your voters?"