US President Donald Trump criticized The Supreme Court made the announcement on social media on Tuesday after the court rejected the government’s emergency request to allow the United States Postal Service (USPS) to tighten absentee voting requirements ahead of the midterm elections.
“These are not the people I interviewed for the Supreme Court of the United States, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” the president wrote. “It is a court that will go down in history for making some of the most destructive, hurtful and damaging decisions in our country’s history.”
The court rejected the Justice Department’s petition the day before, preventing the rule from being enforced in the upcoming election. The Rule would have forced its use Pre-approved designs for ballot envelopes, special voter barcodes and electronic portals uploaded with voter rolls. The rule followed a march Implementing regulation It established a policy to prevent “violations of federal criminal law and to maintain public confidence in election results.”
All three Trump appointees to the court – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – rejected the petition in majority. Judge Kavanaugh wrote a brief concurrence of the decision, stating that while he believed the USPS had the authority to promulgate the rule, the change came too soon before the election and therefore conflicted with the Administrative Procedure Act.
The denial follows a series of legal losses for the Trump administration. In June, the court upheld birthright citizenship and struck down an executive order that attempted to limit citizenship to those born in the United States whose mothers had lawful permanent status, or conversely, mothers with temporary status and fathers with permanent status. In February, the court struck down tariffs imposed by the administration under the law International Emergency Powers Act.
“(The court) “The terrible tariff decision will cost the US trillions upon millions of dollars for years to come,” Trump posted Tuesday. “Similarly, the (court’s) decision on birthright citizenship is a complete disaster for America and has already led to massive corruption regarding ‘citizenship’ in our country.”
The Supreme Court generally seeks to prevent “craft” with election rules before an election. The judicial standard, known as the Purcell Principle, aims to avoid confusion and voter disenfranchisement that often occurs when voters and election administrators deal with election changes with minimal notice.
Have election research groups noted a growing partisan divide over the use of mail-in ballots. In the 2020 election, 58 percent of Democrats reportedly voted by mail, compared to 29 percent of Republicans, according to researchers at MIT’s Election Performance Index. Republican support for mail-in voting has reportedly increased dropped from 57 percent in 2018 to 34 percent in 2026. Over the same period, Democrats’ support for mail-in voting only shifted from 83 percent to 81 percent.
