Trump administration again asks Supreme Court to allow mail voting restrictions
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The Trump administration on Thursday again asked the US Supreme Court to allow it to enforce an executive order imposing stricter restrictions on mail-in voting, less than two months before the crucial midterm elections.
The executive order directs immigration authorities and the Social Security Administration to help create a federal list of eligible voters. It also instructs the US Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to people included on the list.
President Donald Trump has for years claimed that mail-in voting is vulnerable to fraud and has repeatedly linked it to what he alleges were irregularities in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump signed the executive order on March 31, prompting several legal challenges in Democratic-led states.
On August 24, the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, handed Trump a temporary victory in his effort to restrict mail-in voting by allowing the order to take effect.
The ruling came over the objections of the court's three liberal justices. The Supreme Court lifted a lower federal court's suspension of the measure in Democratic-led states, without ruling on the merits of the case.
The justices said the suspension would cause harm to the federal government while not imposing comparable harm on the states.
However, on August 27, the same federal judge suspended the order again, ruling that it would be "practically impossible" for states to comply with the measure in time for the November 3 elections.
The judge said the executive order was "likely unconstitutional" and would cause "irreparable harm" to states responsible for administering elections, while potentially undermining voters' rights.
