The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to fully implement an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that seeks to impose additional restrictions on mail-in voting. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer called an order by a federal judge in Massachusetts that paused portions of the order in 23 states and the District of Columbia “extraordinary,” and he argued that it “flouts settled” doctrines governing when courts can weigh in on a dispute.
Sauer also asked the court to issue an immediate administrative stay – an order that temporarily puts the lower court’s order on hold while the justices consider the government’s request.
Trump signed <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>the executive order at the center of the case, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections” on March 31 of this year. Among other things, the order instructs the U.S. Postal Service to propose rules for mail-in and absentee ballots, and it directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile “state citizenship lists” – lists of individuals in each state who are U.S. citizens over the age of 18. Under the order, the rules issued by the USPS must provide that the Postal Service can only send mail-in ballots to voters whose names appear on the state citizenship lists.
A group of 23 states and the District of Columbia, led by California, went to federal court in Massachusetts to challenge the implementation of the order. They argued that the order conflicts with provisions in the Constitution that give states the power to determine voter eligibility and to set the “Times, Places, and Manner” of holding congressional elections.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani agreed and on June 25 issued an order that prohibited the federal government from implementing the mail-in ballot and state citizenship list provisions for the Nov. 3, 2026, elections in the states that had filed the lawsuit.
In an order issued on Saturday, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit turned down the government’s request to intervene. If the order were “to take effect for the elections taking place” in the fall, the majority wrote, “it would sow confusion and threaten disenfranchisement of many eligible voters.”
The Trump administration then came to the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to step in. Sauer argued that the courts should not yet consider the states’ lawsuit because the agencies haven’t yet decided how they will implement the order. But even if it were appropriate for courts to consider their request, Sauer continued, Talwani’s ruling should be put on hold to avoid “serious irreparable harm.” “Even if the agencies’ implementation plans end up being entirely lawful,” Sauer wrote, “there is not enough time to obtain ordinary appellate relief from the injunction in order to carry them out before the November election, especially given that any such plans will need to be implemented well before November given the timing of election procedures concerning voter-roll verification and mail voting.”
The court instructed the states to file a response to the government’s request by 4 p.m. EDT on Monday, Aug. 3.
