As Supreme Court Weighs Trump Mail Ballot Plan, Another Judge Blocks It
The ruling by a lower court judge was another blow to President Trump’s effort to make voting by mail harder. The Supreme Court is also considering the Trump plan.
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The ruling by a lower court judge was another blow to President Trump’s effort to make voting by mail harder. The Supreme Court is also considering the Trump plan.
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· 5:04 min
Sept. 14, 2026Updated 12:12 p.m. ET
As the Supreme Court weighs the legality of a Trump administration plan to change mail-in balloting, a second lower court judge ruled overnight on Sunday that the plan is likely illegal and should be blocked before the November election.
The ruling by Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee, delivered another blow to President Trump’s effort to add new conditions that could make it harder to vote by mail and easier for the federal government to scrutinize state voter rolls while searching for evidence of fraud.
The Supreme Court is considering a similar ruling by a different federal judge based in Massachusetts. Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, has repeatedly found that the plan is likely unconstitutional and could not be implemented so close to the election without disenfranchising voters.
Judge Nichols, of the Federal District Court in Washington, wrote that the Trump administration had not identified any “evidence that there will be significant fraud in the upcoming elections” if he halted the rule. On the other hand, he wrote, there was an “increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections” if the rule took effect.
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Judge Carl J. Nichols wrote that the mail ballot plan created an “increased risk that a significant number of otherwise appropriate absentee or mail-in ballots will ultimately not be counted in the upcoming elections.”Credit...U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
“The public has a strong interest in ensuring that doesn’t happen,” he wrote.
Judge Nichols’s ruling came in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of Democratic-aligned groups, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, as well as a number of civil rights organizations. The Massachusetts suit was brought by a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general and voting rights groups.
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Originally published by nytimes.com. Syndicated material does not necessarily reflect the views of Glamour Canada.
