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On Monday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority gave the Trump administration a temporary procedural victory in its effort to interfere with mail-in voting ahead of the November midterms.
But despite some alarming headlines, the Court did not rule that President Donald Trump has the constitutional authority to rewrite state election rules. It did not uphold the administration’s proposed restrictions on mail ballots. And it did not (yet) change anyone’s ability to vote by mail.
What the Court did was issue an emergency application for a stay, thereby pausing a lower court injunction in Trump v. California, a lawsuit brought by a group of states challenging provisions of the president’s March executive order on elections. The ruling concludes the states had sued too soon and had not yet shown the concrete and imminent injury required to bring their claims.
That distinction is procedural, but its consequences could be profound: The order allows the administration to move forward with parts of a plan that directs the Department of Homeland Security to create state “citizenship lists,” prioritizes investigations and prosecutions of election officials who provide ballots to people deemed ineligible, and orders the U.S. Postal Service to develop new rules governing mail ballots.
Monday’s Supreme Court opinion was unsigned, but the Court’s three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson—signed their dissents. Similarly, feminist legal experts and voting rights advocates issued immediate warnings. Their message: Do not mistake this temporary ruling for a final merits decision on the legality of Trump’s order … but do not minimize the chaos the administration and the Court are allowing to spread, less than three months before a national election.
The post ‘Chaos and Uncertainty’: Feminist Legal Experts React to the Supreme Court Ruling That Didn’t End Mail Voting, but Let Trump’s Interference Move Forward appeared first on Ms. Magazine.
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