Democrats Challenge Trump's Mail-In Voting Order Despite Recent SCOTUS Ruling

Twenty-three Democratic attorneys general and the District of Columbia filed suit against the U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday, challenging a rule that limits who can receive an absentee ballot in the mail.

They filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts two days after the Supreme Court allowed President Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting to proceed while the underlying case continues.

The Supreme Court ruled that the states had sued before the order’s implementation, giving them a concrete rule to fight.

“The Court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell,” the majority wrote in its order.

The liberal wing of the court dissented.

"Today's decision does not address whether the President's attempts to interfere with States' administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful," Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion.

"Nor does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to implement the President's directives."

The Court did leave open a narrower path: a challenge grounded in the Postal Service’s actual rule rather than the order that spawned it. Wednesday's lawsuit takes that path. 

Trump’s executive order requires the United States Postal Service to match every mail ballot against a federal list of eligible voters before being sent out. While it looks like commonsense election integrity to most, Democratic state officials argue that such a list effectively gives the Trump administration control over who receives a ballot ahead of November, a role the states insist belongs to them. A dozen Republican-leaning states, who filed their own brief in that appeal in support of the federal government, noted that the rule still gives states the role of shaping the final voter lists.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is leading the suit along with the attorneys general of Nevada, Washington, and Massachusetts. The full plaintiff list runs longer: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin all joined, along with the District of Columbia. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, also appears as a plaintiff.

The states argue that the Constitution places responsibility for regulating elections with them, a power they say neither the White House nor the Postal Service holds.

"Let's be clear: The U.S. Constitution gives states the power to regulate elections - not the President and not USPS," Bonta said in a statement. The complaint seeks a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to block the rule while litigation proceeds, and it describes the rule as a violation of "the Constitution and federal statutes many times over."

They argue that complying with the order would be costly due to the need to redesign ballot envelopes and to build a data pipeline to USPS from scratch, on a deadline measured in weeks rather than months.

"If not stayed or preliminarily enjoined, the Rule will frustrate or outright prevent Plaintiff States from administering their mail voting programs in November and foreseeably disenfranchise voters who vote by mail," the complaint reads.

"Donald Trump does not run elections. States do," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.

"And his latest attack on democracy is proof of how weak he has become. California will continue to lead the way in defending democracy — using every tool at our disposal and every minute in our day. This perilous moment in history demands no less from us."

White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis called the Supreme Court's decision "was a major win for the security of American elections,” before attacking radical Democrats who “continue to oppose commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders.”