Article Summary
- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily lifted a lower court stay of President Donald Trump’s March 31 executive order limiting access to mail ballots nationwide.
- Trump’s order directs federal agencies to create lists for each state of residents who are confirmed U.S. citizens who will be over age 18 at the time of the next federal election. It also directs the Postal Service not to transmit mail ballots to or from anyone not included on those lists.
- The Supreme Court’s decision was not a final ruling but merely allows the administration to move ahead with the executive order while legal challenges proceed through the courts.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois election officials said Tuesday they are conferring with Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office to determine how Illinois could be affected by a U.S. Supreme Court order allowing the Trump administration to proceed, at least for now, with implementing an executive order that could greatly restrict access to mail-in ballots.
In an emergency order issued late Monday, the court lifted a stay that a federal judge in Massachusetts had issued blocking the administration from implementing Trump’s executive order.
Meanwhile, a separate injunction from the same Massachusetts judge blocking the U.S. Postal Service from implementing Trump’s order technically remains in effect. But the Postal Service has nevertheless moved forward to finalize those rules, apparently clearing the way for the new restrictions to take effect one month before Illinois begins sending out mail ballots to voters who have requested them and early voting officially begins for the Nov. 3 midterms.
But Tazwell County Clerk and Recorder of Deeds John Ackerman said in a statement Tuesday he did not believe the court’s ruling will have any immediate impact.
“At this time, we are proceeding forward with plans to mail out all requested Vote-By-Mail Ballots on September 24th, the first day of Early Voting for the November 3rd, 2026 Gubernatorial Election,” Ackerman said.
David Becker, a national election law expert and executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, said in a statement Monday night that the court’s order “seemed to create complete chaos leading up to the midterm elections, waiting weeks after an administration filing — and just days before mail ballots go out — to completely rewrite the rules of the election.”
Executive order’s path through courts
On March 31, President Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” It calls on the Department of Homeland Security to create a “State Citizenship List” for each state identifying residents of that state who are confirmed to be U.S. citizens who will be 18 years of age or older at the time of the upcoming election.
It also directs the U.S. Postal Service to develop administrative regulations that would prohibit mail carriers from transmitting mail ballots to or from anyone who is not included on those lists.
Illinois was among the 23 states and Washington, D.C., that sued to block the proposed rules.
On June 18, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, declaring major parts of the executive order “legally void” because they exceeded the president’s authority and violate provisions of the U.S. Constitution that give states the authority to determine voter eligibility in federal elections.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals later denied the administration’s request to stay the order, pending appeal of Talwani’s decision.
Meanwhile, as that case was proceeding, the Postal Service continued moving forward to enact new administrative rules to implement Trump’s order. On July 2, Gov. JB Pritzker joined a coalition of eight other Democratic governors in submitting written comments opposing the rule.
On Aug. 11, Talwani issued a separate injunction, blocking the Postal Service from finalizing those rules. But on Friday, Aug. 21, the Postal Service finalized them anyway, prompting U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Illinois, to call for the removal of the Postmaster General David Steiner.
“As a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, I am renewing my call for Steiner to resign and, if he refuses, for the Postal Service Board of Governors to remove him,” Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. “The Postal Service should deliver ballots, not decide who gets to vote, and I will fight every effort by this Administration to disenfranchise the American people.”
In its order Monday, a divided Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s motion to stay the order, pending final disposition of the case at the First Circuit and, if necessary, a further appeal to the Supreme Court itself.
The majority opinion said Trump was likely to win on appeal because the lower court lacked jurisdiction to issue the injunction. It said the states had not shown how they were currently being injured by the order or how they would suffer injury in the future if it were implemented.
The majority also rejected the argument that the executive order infringed on states’ “sovereign authority” to create election rules.
But it also left open the possibility of additional challenges as the order is implemented.
“On that score, time will tell. But the Order itself does not harm the States, so the District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government from trying to implement it,” the unsigned opinion stated.
The court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
“Today’s decision does not address whether the President’s attempts to interfere with States’ administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by Kagan. “Nor does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to implement the President’s directives. Instead, today’s decision merely postpones adjudication of those challenges.”
‘Deeply troubling’
Gov. JB Pritzker issued a statement Monday evening calling the decision “deeply troubling.”
“We are weeks away from voting in the midterms and the President is trying to put fear in Americans about the security of our elections, rewrite the rules, and put the federal government between voters and their ballots,” he said. “Illinois will continue to administer free and fair elections in our state while fighting every attack on voter’s rights.”
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also criticized the ruling in a statement Tuesday but emphasized the case is still open.
“Yesterday’s Supreme Court order is a temporary procedural win for President Trump as he attempts to pursue these lawless goals — but it doesn’t change the reality that the Constitution empowers the states to run our elections, and the rule of law must prevail as this litigation continues,” he said.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
