US President Donald Trump has slammed the Supreme Court for rejecting his calls to suppress mail-in voting, raising concerns that he will use federal power to interfere in November’s midterm elections.
The president lashed out after Monday’s court ruling, saying, “These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.” The justices are “a husk of its true self, a court that has cost America trillions of dollars with shockingly bad decisions.”
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The ruling means states can continue administering mail-in voting under existing procedures. Mail-in and absentee voting have been used in the United States for decades and now account for about one-third of all votes cast nationwide.
Despite the ruling, political analysts and some officials are concerned that President Trump will pull other strings to keep the election process from proceeding as planned and tilt the election in his favor.
So what specific voting rules is President Trump trying to change, and what other powers will his administration use in the lead-up to the midterm elections?
Could President Trump use federal power to sway the election in his favor?
Election officials across the country are concerned about potential interference, from possible seizure of ballots to investigations into voter fraud.
A Reuters investigation, based on interviews with dozens of state and local election officials, found the government is adopting new strategies to guard against political interference, misinformation, cyberattacks and intimidation tactics.
More than a dozen local and state election officials said they have hired outside lawyers or given legal training to themselves and their staff to prepare for potential demands by the administration for access to sensitive voting records and election equipment, the report said.
Nearly twice as many say they are increasing public support and social media campaigns to counter misinformation, including false claims by President Trump and his Republican allies that voting machines are unreliable and that voting by mail is inherently corrupt.
What have opposition parties and campaigners been saying about Trump’s campaign agenda?
Campaigners are fiercely resisting President Trump’s executive actions to dictate federal voting procedures. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center for Justice are suing the administration, arguing that the Constitution gives power over federal elections primarily to states and Congress, not to the president.
There was also opposition from the National Diet Building. A bipartisan group of 261 current and former members of Congress has filed a brief with the Supreme Court challenging President Trump’s executive order and subsequent Postal Service regulations. They argued that the measure violates the separation of powers by stripping the states and Congress of federal election powers that the Constitution grants to the states and Congress.
“The Constitution is clear that the states and Congress, not the president, set the rules for federal elections,” said Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, one of the lawmakers leading the effort.
According to the U.S. Constitution, elections are conducted by local governments under state jurisdiction.
Raskin described President Trump’s attempts to use the U.S. Postal Service to regulate mail-in voting as a “naked power grab” and accused the president of “trying to inject confusion and confusion into the election in a last-ditch effort to preserve his party’s power.”
Sen. Alex Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, similarly argued that neither the president nor the Postal Service has the authority to decide how states administer elections. He said restrictions on mail-in voting could particularly impact military members, people living in rural areas and Americans living overseas.
The White House denied accusations that it was seeking to interfere in the midterm elections, saying the measures were aimed at preventing illegal voting and ensuring confidence in the election system.
Why does President Trump oppose mail-in voting?
This is not the first time President Trump has questioned the security of mail-in voting, citing debunked claims of widespread election fraud related to mail-in voting. Trump falsely blamed his loss in the 2020 presidential election on mail-in voting fraud. At the time, Trump called the voting system “the greatest fraud in the history of politics.” He and his supporters opposed changes made to expand voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Trump and his allies also claim that the mail-in voting program corrupts the election by allowing large numbers of non-citizens to illegally register and vote. To this end, he has pushed for the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), which would require Americans to provide “documentary proof” of their citizenship when registering to vote. The bill has stalled in the Senate over concerns that millions of voters would be disenfranchised.
Studies show that voter fraud is extremely rare. The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, which has influenced many of the Trump administration’s policies, has documented 100 cases in which noncitizens voted from 1982 to 2025. This amounted to about 0.000008 percent of the more than 1.3 billion votes cast in the presidential election at the time.
What did he do to change election rules?
President Trump has made clear his desire to strengthen federal control over elections, saying in early February that “Republicans should nationalize voting.” The White House dismissed concerns that the federal action could disrupt the midterm elections, insisting the administration was enforcing election laws and protecting the integrity of the vote.
In March 2026, President Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to manage mail-in voting by designing new envelopes with special barcodes that allow the federal government to ensure that votes come only from voters.
For midterm elections, this measure would force all states to adopt a uniform envelope style in the short term.
The order also required states to provide the Postal Service with lists of voters before elections. Several government departments will also have voter lists, including the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The Postal Service was also given the power to reject mail-in ballots if they do not comply with new standards or are not associated with a registered voter in each state’s rolls.
Attorneys general have requested 47 states and the District of Columbia turn over their complete voter registration lists, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy group. Eleven states have complied or agreed to comply. The Trump administration filed lawsuits against 20 others who refused.
