Trump Administration Urges Supreme Court to Restrict Mail-In Voting as States Begin Distributing Ballots

Voters in North Carolina began receiving their mail-in ballots on Friday, marking the first state to do so in this election cycle.

This development comes as the Trump administration pushes the Supreme Court to revive an executive order that would significantly limit mail-in voting practices.

The administration filed an emergency request on Thursday asking the justices to lift a lower court’s injunction on the order — a request filed just as ballots began being distributed and approximately two months before the November midterms.

North Carolina election officials say they are continuing forward regardless, with the state’s elections chief informing reporters that it remains “business as usual” as ballots are distributed. Other states, including Alabama, are preparing to follow later this month.

Trump signed the executive order in March, arguing that mail voting is susceptible to fraud — a claim linked to his persistent assertion that mail ballots cost him the 2020 election.

Nearly a third of Americans voted by mail in the 2024 general election, accounting for more than 48 million votes, according to researchers at States United. The order would require states to submit lists of eligible voters through a federal portal and would direct the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to those on approved lists. Democratic-led states have filed lawsuits, arguing that the Constitution grants states, not the federal government, authority over how elections are conducted.

Federal Judge Indira Talwani blocked the order last week, ruling it “practically impossible” for states to comply given how close they are to sending out ballots.

Adding to the pressure on the system, a Postal Service whistleblower has warned that the technology behind the new voter-list portal ordered by Trump was built in a rushed, error-prone manner that could result in millions of ballots going undelivered.

The Supreme Court has already weighed in once, temporarily lifting a separate lower-court block on the order without ruling on its merits — leaving the practice in legal limbo just as voting gets underway.

The stakes for Trump are considerable. The midterms will determine control of Congress for the remainder of his term, and polls suggest Republicans face a genuine risk of losing their narrow House majority.

A Democratic-controlled House would be positioned to block his legislative agenda — and has indicated it could pursue a third impeachment attempt against him.

That backdrop helps explain why a voting method used by roughly a third of Americans has become such a high-stakes dispute, fought out in the courts in the final weeks before ballots are cast.

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