SUPREME COURT REJECTS TRUMP BID TO RESTRICT MAIL VOTING

The US Supreme Court rejected an attempt by President Donald Trump to impose new restrictions on mail-in ballots ahead of November's midterm elections, according to a ruling issued on Monday. The decision allows states to continue distributing mail ballots under the processes they have used for years, with such ballots accounting for nearly a third of all votes cast in the country. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas publicly dissented from the brief order, which did not detail the majority's reasoning, as is typical for the court's emergency docket. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the restrictions should not take effect for the midterms but indicated he might side with the Trump administration if the matter returns to the court later. Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin had already begun sending mail ballots to voters in the past week while the administration's proposed system remained inactive.

The Trump administration's plan would have required states to adopt a uniform envelope style and submit lists of eligible voters to an online portal, with the Postal Service able to refuse delivery to states that did not comply. Alito wrote in his dissent that the Postal Service "has broad authority to regulate the mail" and likely does have power to enforce the restrictions. Trump has long raised concerns about the security of mail-in voting and blamed it for his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, though the Brookings Institution has found cases of forgery or repeat voting amount to about four in every 10 million mailed votes. Eight states, including California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, along with the District of Columbia, conduct all elections entirely by mail.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the state's election workers were already preparing to carry out what he described as a safe, secure and accurate election. Election officials had said there was no way to carry out a complete overhaul of mail voting procedures in the weeks before the midterms. The ruling clears the way for states to proceed with existing mail ballot systems as voting continues ahead of November's contests for control of Congress.