\n<\/p>\n
Even with voting already underway, uncertainty about what might come next had been hovering over preparations for this year’s midterm elections.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Supreme Court lifted much of that uncertainty late Monday when it rejected President Donald Trump\u2019s push<\/a> to have the U.S. Postal Service play a central role in deciding who would be able to receive a mail ballot.<\/p>\n The decision is a win for the status quo. The thousands of election offices around the country can send out mail ballots as they had intended without worrying about complying with new Postal Service rules imposed at the 11th hour.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, we can finally move forward and get back to what we do best: conducting our elections without a dark cloud hanging over us \u2014 fairly, openly, for the people, by the people,\u201d California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat who oversees voting in a state where all voters receive a mail ballot, said in a statement after the decision.<\/p>\n The case before the court stemmed from an executive order Trump signed<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n The administration developed a plan<\/a> that would require states to adopt a uniform envelope style for mailed ballots and submit lists of eligible voters to an online portal it was developing. The Postal Service could refuse to deliver ballots to states that didn\u2019t comply.<\/p>\n A whistleblower report<\/a> said the postal system\u2019s requirements could lead to millions of mail ballots never being sent, disenfranchising many of the country’s voters during an election that will decide control of Congress during the final two years of Trump’s term.<\/p>\n A tangle of legal challenges, rapid-fire rulings and appeals left election officials uncertain about what rules would ultimately be in place. But they agreed on one thing: Introducing such massive changes so close to a general election would be chaotic and nearly impossible to pull off in a country where roughly a third of voters<\/a> use mail ballots.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court’s decision comes as mail voting is already in progress<\/a> in some states. Some election officials have said they were worried that the dispute, coming late in the election cycle, would leave voters confused about what\u2019s allowed.<\/p>\n Voting rights advocates and state election officials moved swiftly after Monday’s decision to make clear that elections will function as they always have in each state.<\/p>\n \u201cUtahns can have confidence that the 2026 election will proceed as normal,\u201d said Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican serving as the state\u2019s chief election officer.<\/p>\n The concern was particularly acute in the eight states where voters cast ballots almost entirely by mail<\/a>: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington.<\/p>\n They had faced the daunting challenge of adapting in short order without an extensive network of polling places.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a victory for Oregonians, the right to vote, and the rule of law,” said Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read, a Democrat. “This provides voters and elections officials with the certainty they need ahead of a major, federal election, and it sends a clear message to this country: Presidents don\u2019t run elections, the people do.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said his reaction to the Supreme Court\u2019s decision is \u201cone of relief, but also excitement, because today the voters really won across America.\u201d<\/p>\n In Nevada\u2019s June primary, more than half of voters cast ballots by mail. It\u2019s a state where mail voting is \u201ccritical\u201d to voter voices being heard, Aguilar said.<\/p>\n But the Democrat said \u201csome of the damage has already been done,\u201d with false claims about mail ballots affecting people\u2019s confidence in the voting method.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can trust the process,\u201d Aguilar urged voters. \u201cPlease participate.\u201d<\/p>\n Lower courts<\/a> had blocked the Trump administration from implementing its rules<\/a>. The Supreme Court rejected the its attempt to stay those decisions, even as three justices \u2014 Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas \u2014 expressed various levels of willingness to let Trump carry out his plan in current or future elections.<\/p>\n Yet a majority of the justices noted in the decision that the administration was \u201cunlikely to succeed on the merits” in defending its plan. It was heartening to some voting rights experts to see that language inserted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe court didn\u2019t have to explain that it was disinclined to side with the government on the merits, but it did that, and that is a sign for the future,\u201d said Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor.<\/p>\n David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who is now executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said implementing Trump’s executive order \u201cwould have done nothing for election integrity but would have imposed a vast and expensive new bureaucracy on the states\u201d and disenfranchised voters.<\/p>\n He said the majority’s language about the merits of the case meant \u201cit is unlikely these rules will ever apply to any election.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cThanks to the rule of law, voters will not need to worry about this.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writers Sophie Austin in Sacramento, California, Nicholas Riccardi in Mason, Michigan, Ali Swenson in New York, Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, D.C., and Wufei Yu in Phoenix contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n