US Supreme Court rejects Trump's request for stricter postal voting rules

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.

Republican Trump reacts angrily

US President Donald Trump reacted to the decision with sharp criticism of the judges: "The court's inability and unwillingness to do the right thing for our country will go down in the annals of history in a very negative way," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Judges Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, who were nominated by him, also decided against Trump. The president wrote that these were no longer the people he had chosen. “They are just a shadow of themselves,” said the Republican.

Of the nine justices, six were selected by Republican presidents. Trump now claimed that the Supreme Court was allowing itself to be intimidated by a radical left and pressured into making decisions that would have set the country back at least a hundred years.

Concern about voters being disadvantaged

At the end of March, Trump ordered that the US Postal Service should only send postal voting documents to people who are on a voter list previously drawn up by the states. The US Postal Service could have refused delivery from states that do not meet the requirements.

According to critics, this would mean that the postal service would go from being a mere deliverer of election documents to a controlling body in the election process. In particular, critical voices accused Trump of wanting to disadvantage the Democratic Party with his plans. Their electorate traditionally opts for postal voting more often.

In view of the plans that were pushed ahead at short notice before the midterms, Trump was also confronted with accusations of causing confusion and chaos before the elections.

Democrats welcome Supreme Court decision

California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom described Trump's attempt as an "attack on democracy" and welcomed the Supreme Court's decision. “The American people finally have certainty about our country’s electoral process,” Newsom wrote on Platform X. Postal voting is open to everyone who needs it.

The civil rights organization ACLU said the Constitution gives the states and Congress the power to set the rules for elections, "not the president and not the Postal Service."

The US government, however, defended its plans with the argument that they wanted to prevent alleged election fraud, although there is little evidence of this. Among other things, Trump wrongly blamed postal voting for his defeat against Joe Biden in 2020.