What’s next for mail voting after the Supreme Court ruled against Trump

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Election officials in both Democratic and Republican-led states breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump’s sweeping restrictions on mail-in balloting Monday, which they had warned would upend vote-by-mail and potentially disenfranchise millions of voters in the midterms.

The decision means the voters can cast ballots by mail as the laws in their state previously allowed. While election officials have been anxious about Trump’s attempts to severely complicate the process, they have spent the last several months assuming — correctly — that courts would intervene to block his proposal, and they’ve focused on making their mail voting programs available as usual.

Still, because of lingering confusion around Trump’s efforts to change the rules, election officials say they’ll likely take extra steps to ensure voters feel comfortable casting ballots by mail.

Under the rules Trump was trying to impose, the US Postal Service would only deliver ballots if their envelopes had unique barcodes for each voter — a requirement some jurisdictions would have struggled to meet, as they had neither the time nor the funding to replace non-compliant materials. He also wanted to require states to provide their mail voter lists to USPS, with the possibility that entire batches of ballots would be rejected by postal workersif just one envelope did not match the voter information submitted with the agency.

Election officials say that voters have been expressing concerns for weeks about using the mail to vote in light of the litigation, but that they’ve encouraged their voters to “put all of the noise aside.”

Here’s who is mostly likely to vote by mail

In court filings leading up to the Supreme Court’s decision, both Republican and Democratic election officials warned that requiring the Trump administration’s proposed changes to mail balloting were unworkable and would have caused major disruptions — if not blocked mail voting in their states altogether.

At the same time, as the litigation wound its way through the courts, most election officials said they were simply keeping their heads down and preparing for the election under the assumption that Trump’s directives would ultimately be blocked by the courts — even in Republican-led states that argued in favor of the changes.

“I’ve been telling people however they like to vote in the past — plan to vote that way this year too,” said Tracy Overstreet, election commissioner in central Nebraska’s Hall County. “Kind of put all the noise aside.”

That work has now proven prudent in light of the Supreme Court’s decision, with ballots already sent out in some states and more going out every day as Election Day draws closer.

Kate Sweeney Bell, the clerk in Marion County, Indiana, which includes Indianapolis, said the Supreme Court’s decision gives election officials finality that they can use to reassure their voters.

“I don’t think that President Trump is done trying to sow more doubt into the outcome of the election,” she said. “But with the decision by the highest court in the land, I think this has been addressed — and that will be part of our message.”

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Monday night’s Supreme Court ruling was a capstone of a series of legal setbacks Trump has faced in his efforts to unilaterally change election rules or otherwise give the federal government more control over how local officials carry out voting practices.

A 2025 executive order by the president that sought to boost proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration was blocked by several lower courts.

The Trump administration has also been dealt a wave of defeats in a Justice Department campaign to force states to hand over their unredacted voter registration files, so DOJ can audit them for ineligible voters. The DOJ sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for refusing. All 23 of the district courts to have ruled on the merits of DOJ’s demands have rejected the administration’s arguments (one state reached a settlement in the litigation), and an appeals court has ruled twice against Trump as well.

Trump has had better luck in court cases that do not involve new mandates for state election officials from the government, with the Supreme Court adopting some of his DOJ’s views in high-stakes redistricting disputes for this cycle. And the president might ultimately prevail in his request that the Supreme Court revive an immigrant data program his administration has encouraged states to use to do voluntary reviews of their voter rolls for non-citizens.

“All of the things we’re going to hear between now and November 3 are noise intended by the administration to create an impression of chaos and confusion that is false,” said David Becker, who heads the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “Those efforts are failing. We’re seeing it in high turnout in the primaries. We’re seeing it in the very secure and excellent election administration that we’ve seen in the primaries. And we’ll continue to see that.”

Local election officials say the race is on now to ensure their voters are confident they can cast their ballots through the mail.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said he has spent recent weeks trying to dispel misconceptions about mail voting. The questions intensified after the Supreme Court initially allowed the administration to move ahead with its mail-ballot rulemaking last month, before blocking implementation of the rules for the midterms this week.

“People were coming up to me saying, ‘Oh, what are you going to do? There’s no vote by mail,’” Hobbs said. “I said, ‘No, it’s still going on.’”

Marybeth Kuznik, director of elections in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Fayette County, said that she had a voter come to her office to sign up for a mail ballot Tuesday who had incorrectly believed they weren’t allowed before Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.

“My job here is to get the word out to my voters that nothing has changed, and yes, they can vote by mail if that’s how they’d like to — and we’ll do everything we can as we always do,” Kuznik said.

Michigan has launched a “Cast with Confidence” campaign to reassure voters that they can cast ballots as they choose in November. Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie is traveling the state to meet with voters and local election officials and combat confusion over voting options and federal interference, including the administration’s blocked mail ballot rules.

“There is a lot of confusion out there, unfortunately, because of this proposed rule,” Edevbie said. “We’re going to have to do some work to reassure people that, yes, you can vote by mail. That has never changed, and it’s not going to change for this cycle.”

Election officials say that the legal fight over the Postal Service and mail ballots does not change a more fundamental problem for absentee voting: delays in mail delivery.

Michigan and other states are steering voters toward using ballot drop boxes instead of returning ballots through the mail. Washington state, where nearly all voting is by mail, is doing the same.

“There are definitely doubts, and there’s a degree of distrust” in the Postal Service, Hobbs said. “What we’re doing is reassuring voters that their votes will be counted. They do have to move more from putting their mail into a mailbox to a drop box because that is more certain.”

Sweeney Bell said that the Postal Service’s delivery issues are not new — but are important for voters to be aware of to ensure their ballots are counted.

“When I go and speak to groups, I let them know that voting by mail is not the procrastinator’s way to cast a ballot,” she said. “We’re continuing to reassure our voters that their vote will count, even if it’s by mail. But don’t delay.”

Kathy Boockvar, a former Pennsylvania secretary of state who runs an election security firm, said election officials should make sure their voters know about mail delivery issues — as well as alternatives like drop boxes and early voting.

“It’s important for election officials to affirm that there are mail delays. That is just a factual situation that we’re dealing with. We dealt with it in Covid. We’ve dealt with it in other times,” Boockvar said. “What election officials I think have been doing this year and will continue to do is have as many in-person options available to voters as possible.”

The American Postal Workers Union is mounting its own multimillion dollar ad campaign defending vote-by-mail against efforts to undermine it. This week, ads will start airing in North Carolina, where mail ballots are already going out.

“This decision is a victory for every American and a relief for postal workers who are committed to serving them,” said APWU President Jonathan Smith.

The Postal Service did not respond to CNN’s questions about the Supreme Court decision or its mail ballot rules.

The exact vote count of the Supreme Court’s order is not clear; it is only certain that at least five justices voted against Trump’s mail voting limits taking effect now, and two conservatives publicly sided with the administration.

Still, the brief, unsigned order from the court’s majority sent a notable signal. It said that the administration had failed to overcome the high burden for unfreezing the requirements now. But the court also said the administration “is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge,” meaning that the majority was likely to strike down the plan if it was pushed for a future election as well.

Besides the dissent from Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence hinting he thought the USPS requirements could be legal down the road even though he voted not to revive them now.

At a White House press briefing Tuesday, Attorney General Todd Blanche left open the possibility the administration could continue pursuing changes to mail voting ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

“President Trump’s efforts to make sure that we have free and fair elections are not going to stop just in November or after or thereafter,” Blanche said. “So I expect you’re going to see that work continue.”

In the meantime, Trump has attacked the Supreme Court — and the three justices he appointed in his first term.

“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 said on Truth Social.

“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” he added.

Lali Madduri, a partner at Elias Law Group, one of the firms challenging the mail-ballot initiative, said she expects another push for these mail ballot restrictions — and other interventions — ahead of the 2028 election.

“It could very well reach the [Supreme Court] again in the next couple of years,” Madduri said. “But I think [the court] already sent a pretty strong message here that it doesn’t think that the what the federal government is doing is lawful.”

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周一，最高法院阻止了唐纳德·特朗普总统对邮寄投票的全面限制，民主党和共和党执政州的选举官员都松了一口气。他们曾警告说，这些限制将颠覆邮寄投票，并可能在中期选举中剥夺数百万选民的投票权。

这项决定意味着选民可以按照各自州此前的法律规定，通过邮寄方式投票。尽管选举官员一直对特朗普试图严重复杂化选举程序的做法感到担忧，但他们在过去几个月里一直正确地认为，法院会介入阻止他的提议，因此他们专注于确保邮寄投票项目照常进行。

不过，由于特朗普试图改变规则的做法仍然造成混乱，选举官员表示，他们可能会采取额外措施，以确保选民能够安心地通过邮寄方式投票。

根据特朗普试图推行的规则，美国邮政局只会投递信封上带有每位选民唯一条形码的选票——一些地区难以满足这一要求，因为他们既没有时间也没有资金来更换不合规的信封。他还想要求各州向美国邮政局提供其邮寄选民名单，这意味着如果只有一个信封上的选民信息与邮政局收到的名单不符，整批选票都可能被邮政工作人员拒收。

选举官员表示，鉴于诉讼的影响，选民们几周以来一直对使用邮寄方式投票表示担忧，但他们鼓励选民“把所有杂音都放在一边”。

以下是最有可能通过邮寄方式投票的人群。

在最高法院做出裁决之前提交的法庭文件中，共和党和民主党的选举官员都警告说，要求特朗普政府对邮寄投票提出修改方案是不可行的，而且会造成重大混乱——甚至可能完全阻止他们所在州的邮寄投票。

与此同时，随着诉讼在法院的进行，大多数选举官员表示，他们只是保持低调，为选举做准备，他们认为特朗普的指令最终会被法院阻止——即使是在共和党领导的、支持这些改变的州也是如此。

“我一直以来都告诉人们，无论他们过去喜欢怎么投票，今年也应该继续这样投票，”内布拉斯加州中部霍尔县的选举专员特雷西·奥弗斯特里特说。“把所有的杂音都放在一边。”

鉴于最高法院的裁决，这项工作现在已被证明是明智的，一些州已经寄出了选票，随着选举日的临近，每天都有更多的选票寄出。

印第安纳州马里恩县（包括印第安纳波利斯市）的书记员凯特·斯威尼·贝尔表示，最高法院的裁决赋予了选举官员最终决定权，他们可以利用这一决定来安抚选民。

“我认为特朗普总统还没有停止散布关于选举结果的更多疑虑，”她说。“但随着最高法院的裁决，我认为这个问题已经得到解决——而这也将成为我们传递信息的一部分。”

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周一晚间最高法院的裁决，标志着特朗普在单方面改变选举规则或赋予联邦政府更多控制地方官员如何执行投票程序的努力中遭遇的一系列法律挫折达到了顶峰。

总统于 2025 年签署的一项行政命令旨在提高选民登记的公民身份证明要求，但该命令被多家下级法院驳回。

特朗普政府在司法部要求各州交出未经删减的选民登记档案以便司法部进行审计，查明不合格选民的行动中也遭遇了一连串挫败。司法部起诉了30个州和哥伦比亚特区，指控它们拒绝提供这些档案。在已就司法部的要求作出裁决的23个地区法院中，所有法院都驳回了政府的论点（其中一个州与司法部达成了和解），上诉法院也两次做出对特朗普不利的裁决。

在不涉及政府对州选举官员施加新指令的诉讼案件中，特朗普的运气似乎更好。最高法院在本轮选举周期中，在一些事关重大的选区重划争议中采纳了他领导的司法部的部分观点。此外，总统最终或许能够成功，促使最高法院恢复一项移民数据项目。该项目由特朗普政府发起，旨在鼓励各州自愿审查其选民名册中是否存在非公民。

“从现在到11月3日，我们听到的所有消息都是政府试图制造混乱和困惑的假象，但这完全是错误的，”选举创新与研究中心主任大卫·贝克尔说。“他们的伎俩正在失败。初选的高投票率就证明了这一点。初选期间，选举管理工作非常安全高效，这一点也证明了这一点。而且，这种情况还会继续下去。”

当地选举官员表示，现在的首要任务是确保选民对邮寄投票充满信心。

华盛顿州州务卿史蒂夫·霍布斯表示，他最近几周一直在努力消除人们对邮寄投票的误解。此前，最高法院最初允许政府上个月推进邮寄投票规则的制定，但本周又阻止了这些规则在中期选举中的实施，此后，相关疑问愈演愈烈。

霍布斯说：“人们走过来问我，‘哦，你打算怎么办？现在没有邮寄投票了。’我说，‘不，邮寄投票还在进行中。’”

宾夕法尼亚州西南部费耶特县的选举主任玛丽贝丝·库兹尼克表示，周二有一位选民来到她的办公室登记邮寄选票，这位选民错误地认为在周一最高法院裁决之前，他们不被允许邮寄选票。

库兹尼克说：“我的工作是向选民们传达一个信息，那就是一切都没有改变，是的，如果他们愿意，他们可以通过邮寄方式投票——我们将像往常一样尽一切努力。”

密歇根州发起了一项名为“安心投票”的活动，旨在让选民放心，他们可以在11月按照自己的意愿投票。州务卿副手阿戈戈·埃德维比正在全州各地走访，与选民和地方选举官员会面，消除选民对投票方式和联邦政府干预（包括政府阻挠邮寄选票的规定）的困惑。

“很遗憾，这项拟议规则造成了很多混乱，”埃德维比说。“我们必须做一些工作来让人们放心，是的，你们可以邮寄投票。这一点从未改变过，而且在本轮选举中也不会改变。”

选举官员表示，围绕邮政服务和邮寄选票的法律斗争并不能改变缺席投票的一个更根本的问题：邮件投递延误。

密歇根州和其他一些州正在引导选民使用投票箱，而不是通过邮寄方式寄回选票。华盛顿州几乎所有投票都是通过邮寄进行的，该州也在采取同样的做法。

霍布斯说：“人们确实对邮政服务存在疑虑和一定程度的不信任。我们正在做的就是让选民放心，他们的选票一定会被计入。他们确实应该更多地把邮件从投递到邮箱，因为这样更有保障。”

斯威尼·贝尔表示，邮政服务的投递问题并非新鲜事，但选民了解这些问题很重要，以确保他们的选票能够被计入。

“我去和大家交流时，都会告诉他们邮寄投票并不是拖延者的投票方式，”她说。“我们会不断向选民保证，即使是邮寄投票，他们的选票也有效。但请不要拖延。”

曾任宾夕法尼亚州州务卿、现经营选举安全公司的凯西·布克瓦尔表示，选举官员应该确保选民了解邮件投递问题，以及其他替代方案，例如投票箱和提前投票。

“选举官员必须确认邮件确实存在延误。这是我们目前面临的实际情况。我们在新冠疫情期间就遇到过这种情况，其他时期也遇到过，”布克瓦尔说。“我认为选举官员今年一直在做的，并将继续做的，是尽可能为选民提供更多现场投票的选择。”

美国邮政工人工会正发起一项耗资数百万美元的广告宣传活动，捍卫邮寄投票制度，抵制任何破坏邮寄投票的企图。本周，该工会的广告将在北卡罗来纳州开始播出，该州的邮寄选票已经开始寄出。

“这项决定对每一位美国人来说都是一场胜利，对那些致力于为人民服务的邮政工作人员来说也是一种解脱，”美国邮政工人联合会主席乔纳森·史密斯说。

美国邮政总局没有回应 CNN 关于最高法院裁决或其邮寄投票规则的问题。

最高法院裁决的确切投票结果尚不清楚；只确定至少有五名大法官投票反对特朗普的邮寄投票限制立即生效，而两名保守派大法官公开支持政府。

尽管如此，这份简短且未署名的法院多数派命令仍然发出了一个重要的信号。命令指出，政府未能克服解除当前冻结要求的重重障碍。但法院也表示，政府“不太可能在实质性挑战中胜诉”，这意味着如果该计划被强行推进到未来的选举中，多数派很可能会再次否决它。

除了塞缪尔·阿利托和克拉伦斯·托马斯两位大法官的反对意见外，布雷特·卡瓦诺大法官还写了一份协同意见，暗示他认为美国邮政署的要求将来可能是合法的，尽管他现在投票反对恢复这些要求。

周二，在白宫新闻发布会上，司法部长托德·布兰奇表示，政府有可能在 2028 年总统大选前继续推进邮寄投票的改革。

布兰奇说：“特朗普总统为确保我们拥有自由公正的选举所做的努力不会止步于11月，也不会止步于之后。所以我预计这项工作将会继续下去。”

与此同时，特朗普抨击了最高法院——以及他在第一任期内任命的三名大法官。

“共和党人刚刚从美国最高法院得到了又一个糟糕的决定，法院系统花了很长时间才做出这个决定，然后他们把部分原因归咎于没有时间来实施解决方案，以解决我们完全腐败且失控的邮寄投票‘灾难’，这在全世界都是一个笑柄，而我们是唯一一个不得不忍受这种摧毁国家的骗局的国家，”特朗普在Truth Social上说道。

“这些人已经不是我当初面试的那些美国最高法院大法官了，他们只是失去了往日的风采，”他补充道。

埃利亚斯律师集团的合伙人拉利·马杜里表示，她预计在 2028 年大选之前，将会再次出现推动这些邮寄选票限制措施以及其他干预措施的呼声。埃利亚斯律师集团是挑战邮寄投票倡议的公司之一。

马杜里说：“未来几年，这起案件很可能再次上诉到最高法院。但我认为，最高法院已经发出了一个非常明确的信号，那就是它认为联邦政府的做法不合法。”