With November 3 approaching, the most explosive domestic fight is over how Americans will vote.
In March, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile “state citizenship lists” and ordering the U.S. Postal Service to impose new rules on mail ballots, including unique envelope designs and delivery only to voters on approved lists.
About 30 percent of voters used mail ballots in 2024; in California, the figure in the June primary exceeded 89 percent.
On Monday, the Supreme Court, divided along ideological lines, lifted an injunction that had blocked the order in 23 states and the District of Columbia. The majority did not uphold the policy on the merits.
It held that the states had sued too early, before agencies finished implementing the order. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston vacated her remaining block on the Postal Service rule, saying the high court had tied her hands.
She still described the order as likely unconstitutional and capable of producing “chaos.” Twenty-three Democratic-led states, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro immediately filed a new lawsuit against the finalized USPS plan. Voting-rights groups are pursuing a parallel case.
The administration says the rules are a common-sense response to fraud concerns and that the Postal Service needs uniform procedures. Trump allies have separately floated emergency federal control of election administration.
Opponents say the Constitution assigns election administration to the states, that the president has no general power to redesign federal elections, and that rejecting or delaying ballots could disenfranchise millions who vote by mail because of work, disability, or distance from polls.
The legal posture is unusually unstable. A policy that a trial judge called unlawful is now in force unless a new injunction issues, while the Supreme Court has not decided whether the president may order the Postal Service to police voter eligibility.
Election officials warn that mid-cycle changes to envelopes, lists, and delivery rules invite rejected ballots and conflicting guidance from county to county.
For both parties, the fight is about more than envelopes. It is about whether the 2026 midterms will be run under the system states have used since the founding, or under a new federal template imposed weeks before Election Day.
