Trump administration loses postal vote dispute before US Supreme Court

President Donald Trump's government has suffered a defeat before the Supreme Court in the legal dispute over stricter requirements for postal voting in the USA.

The Supreme Court declined to enforce new rules that would impose stricter requirements on mailed ballots. This means that the regulation remains suspended before the important congressional elections in November.

It is unlikely that the government will be successful in its challenge to a lower court's injunction on the matter, the brief statement said. The Justice Department had tried in vain to have the lower court's injunction overturned.

Documents have already been sent in some places

The US government wanted to get the Supreme Court to impose its stricter postal voting rules before the midterm elections.

The fact that this now leaves the order of a lower court in force means in practice that the states can continue to send their postal voting documents according to the standards that previously applied. In some places this has already happened.