Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Tuesday the Trump administration will comply with the Supreme Court’s decision blocking new restrictions on mail-in voting. Trump lashed out at the ruling, calling it among the most destructive in US history.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the administration’s plan to impose new US Postal Service rules on mail-in ballots for the midterm elections, leaving existing voting procedures in place. The court left in place a lower-court order blocking a rule that would have required states to provide voter-specific data and use agency-approved envelopes with barcodes.
“Of course we are going to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision,” Blanche told reporters.
Trump responded on Truth Social with posts attacking the court and the three justices he appointed during his first term. “This Supreme Court is bullied and cajoled by the Radical Left into making decisions that have set America back at least a hundred years,” he wrote, calling the justices “a shell of their original selves.” His appointees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — helped establish the court’s 6-3 conservative majority.
Justice Kavanaugh agreed with the decision, saying state and local officials did not have enough time to implement the rule before the midterm election. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. Blanche defended Trump’s criticism, saying the president was very frustrated and had every right to voice concerns about another branch of government.
Election officials in several states are working to reassure voters that mail ballots are safe. Twenty-nine percent of Americans voted by mail in the 2024 presidential election and roughly one third did so in the 2022 midterms, according to researchers at the MIT election lab.
Meagan Wolfe, administrator of the Wisconsin elections commission, said in a video released Tuesday: “If you’re going to be returning your ballot by mail, please do so at least two weeks before the election. And you also may want to contact your municipal clerk to find out if there are other opportunities for you to return your ballot in your community. You may have drop-boxes or you may be able to return your ballot in person to your clerk.”
In Washington state, more than 20,000 votes were rejected in the August primary because they arrived late at an election office.