Ever since President Donald Trump ordered the Postal Service to deny mail-in ballots to voters who did not appear on a list created by the Republican administration, anti-Trump Americans have worried that the Supreme Court would ignore the Constitution — which clearly dictates that states, not the federal government, control elections — and allow Trump to suppress millions of votes during the upcoming midterm elections.
Instead the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 against Trump — yet, as legal experts point out, the Supreme Court still sent up red flags for those alarmed that the notoriously partisan judges in the conservative majority are still in the tank for their fellow Republican.
“First of all, Clarence Thomas was just on Ted Cruz’s podcast openly talking about his conservative values and his distaste and disgust at liberal society and liberal values, right?” Alex Wagner, a journalist who contributes to “The Atlantic” and wrote a new book about the Supreme Court’s radical right-wing turn called “The Steal,” told MS NOW’s Chris Hayes on Monday. Wagner was describing the two judges who dissented in that decision, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. “That is a justice of the Supreme Court who joins Samuel Alito in this dissent. And I think the most piercing line of the dissent is when Alito writes, ‘The plaintiff states invoke the practical effects of implementing the rule post-conventional elections. I take that problem very seriously, but it’s not enough to convince me to deny the application.'”
When Hayes said that Alito sounds like a “king,” Wagner agreed. She then pointed out that even one of the Republican judges who joined the majority, Brett Kavanaugh, hinted that he may allow Trump to suppress mail-in ballots in future elections.
“Even Kavanaugh effectively says this is something Trump can do, which means everybody should be on the lookout for similar attempts ahead of the 2028 presidential elections, right?” Wagner told Hayes. “This is not the end of this battle. But the fact that this is just the arbitrary proclivities of a bunch of conservative partisan hacks who sit on the highest court of the land, with enormous power over American public life — this is a red alarm. This is a red alert situation.”
Chris Geidner, a legal journalist who has written for The New York Times, was scathing toward Alito in his blog post analyzing the decision.
“Alito, in one of the more indefensible conclusions I’ve read from him, wrote that while taking ‘the practical effects of implementing the rule close to the midterm elections’ — including that some states have already begun mailing ballots — ‘very seriously,’ he nonetheless concluded ‘that problem … is not enough to convince me to deny the application,” Geidner wrote. “Specifically, Alito noted that some states “supported the rule“ and absurdly argued that “the plaintiff States and the courts bear a substantial share of the blame for the rule’s timing“ because they had sued over President Donald Trump’s executive order that set all of this in motion.”
Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor, described Alito’s dissent as “disingenuous.”
“Let me say a word about Justice Alito’s disingenuous dissent,” Hasen said on his blog. “I won’t focus on the merits points, about which Alito and Thomas disagree. But on the equities, first Alito blames the states for litigating over this question and saying they are the ones to blame for the late rule—ignoring the fact that the district court allowed USPS to keep working on its rule and its (still nonexistent) portal for voluntary use by states.”
He concluded, “But far more importantly, the voters make no appearance whatsoever in Justice Alito’s reasoning. He, like the government, does not dispute that using the rule in 2026 would disenfranchise millions of our most vulnerable people. He doesn’t care. It’s despicable and antidemocratic.”
In contrast to the experts, run-of-the-mill Trump supporters have reacted with great emotional distress at the Supreme Court’s decision.
“BREAKING: The Supreme Court just BLOCKED President Trump from implementing his landmark US Postal Service mail-in ballot election security rules, a MAJOR LOSS ahead of the midterms,” conservative journalist Eric Daugherty wrote on X on Monday.
“Kavanaugh says in the ruling IT’S TOO LATE FOR THE MIDTERMS. Absolute PATRIOTS Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito dissent.” Posting an American flag, the influencer described the decision as “un-freaking-believable!! ROGUE JUDGES have succeeded in holding this policy up until last mintue. Looks like the USPS security attempts before the midterms are done, aside from DOJ surging monitors to make sure there is no foul play. SCOTUS: ‘The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.’ KAVANAUGH: ‘Applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.'”
Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier similarly characterized the decision as “UNBELIEVABLE. SCOTUS just blocked Trump’s USPS election security rules right before the midterms!”
Speaking to AlterNet in June, Pooja Chaudhuri, Senior Counsel/Deputy Legal Director at Democracy Defenders Fund who specializes in voting rights as well as election law litigation and advocacy, warned that Trump’s attempts to suppress mail-in votes could still indirectly help him in stopping anti-Trump voters from being counted.
“I think there are two things to consider,” Chaudhuri told AlterNet at the time. “One is that the election is made up of voters, and so the outcome depends on people turning out to the polls and voting. The problem is … the chilling effect on voters.”
Chaudhuri concluded, “When voters hear that ICE may be deployed to the polls, that mail-in voting rules are changing close to the election, a lot of voters might say, ‘I’m just not going to go out and vote.’ That could happen in many different ways. There are vulnerable communities — people may come from mixed-status families — they’re US citizens, but they might decide, “I’m not going to vote.”
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