President Donald Trump’s latest effort to steal the midterms has played out in plain view.
asserted
effort → steal → view
His plan was to force states to conform to last minute, untested, and too-late-to-implement vote-by-mail requirements with the inevitable result of disenfranchising thousands, if not millions, of voters.
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plan → force → voters
The only thing Trump needed to launch this bomb into November’s elections was the go-ahead from the Supreme Court.
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Trump → need → Court
But on Monday evening, the court refused to okay the scheme.
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court → refuse → scheme
The brief, unsigned order stated that the Trump administration was unlikely to prevail in its argument that its US Postal Service rule limiting ballot delivery was legal, and that the harm of letting the rule take effect was too great.
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rule → state → effect
As with so many of Trump’s corrupt and lawless actions—from his crypto schemes to bulldozing the East Wing of the White House—the president often carries out his illegal schemes in public.
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president → bulldoze → public
His plan to disrupt mail-in voting, which he perceives would harm Democrats more than Republicans, was the latest.
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he → disrupt → Republicans
By sanitizing the effort with the language of executive orders, rule-making, and court documents, the administration hoped to blind people to the election-stealing scheme underneath it all.
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administration → sanitize → it
It was an attempted heist in broad daylight.
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It → attempt → daylight
On Monday, only two justices publicly went along with this plan.
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justices → go → plan
In a dissent, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, argued that the government likely had the authority to regulate mail-in ballots in the way the administration tried.
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administration → join → way
A third justice, Brett Kavanaugh, agreed, but said implementing it so close to the election would cause too much harm.
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implementing → agree → harm
That means there are likely three votes, if not more, that would side with a Trump administration push to implement its mail-in ballot rules for the 2028 elections and beyond.
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that → mean → elections
Trump has been set on winning this fall’s midterms by any means for more than a year.
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Trump → set → year
Shortly after returning to power in 2025, he issued an executive order requiring citizens to show a passport or similar document to prove citizenship when registering to vote.
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he → return → citizenship
But the president has no authority to interfere with states’ administration of elections, and a federal court blocked the order.
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court → have → order
Next, he pressed Congress to pass the SAVE Act, which would have similarly required documentary proof of citizenship.
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which → press → citizenship
When that failed, he issued the March 2026 executive order that led to today’s court action, this time instructing the Postal Service to limit the delivery of mail-in-ballots by promulgating a rule that places new requirements on how states can send mail ballots.
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states → fail → ballots
The rule, formally unveiled in late August, would have allowed the Postal Service to throw out thousands, even millions, of ballots that are legally cast.
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that → unveil → ballots
It’s an illegal power grab that states, election officials, and legal experts warned would cause a preventable and monumental disaster.
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states → ’ → disaster
“The rule threatens to disenfranchise millions of elderly voters, disabled voters, military voters, and all others including the most vulnerable who depend on mail voting, in both red states and blue,” four experts wrote in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court.
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experts → threaten → Court
The Trump administration even acknowledged the fallout.
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administration → acknowledge → fallout
In asking the justices to allow the USPS rule to take effect, the administration downplayed it as merely imposing “modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements.”
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administration → ask → requirements
But a few pages later, the brief argued that failing to swiftly implement the rule—an impossible feat so close to the midterms—would have disastrous results.
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failing → argue → results
Unless the rule takes effect immediately, “there is a grave risk that States may not have taken the necessary steps to comply…potentially depriving those States’ citizens of the ability to vote by mail.”
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States → take → mail
In other words, even the administration knew that rushing out the rule would lead to mass disenfranchisement—it simply wouldn’t accept that that was a good reason to block implementation of its “modest” envelope requirements.
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that → know → requirements
Though it held against Trump this time, the Supreme Court let the order get this far.
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order → hold → Trump
On August 24, the court threw the midterms into turmoil by ruling that it was too soon for states to challenge the executive order because it wasn’t yet affecting the states.
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it → throw → states
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson denounced that ruling as a “Kafkaesque nightmare” that “contributes to pre-election chaos instead of quashing it.”
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that → denounce → it
The Postal Service had unveiled its rule on August 21, which specified that it will only deliver mail-in ballots if states both hand over their voter rolls to the Trump administration via an online portal that the Postal Service has yet to complete, and adopt new envelope and bar code requirements.
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Service → unveil → requirements
In addition to the Postal Service rule, Trump’s executive order instructs the Department of Homeland Security to create a nationwide database and individual lists of citizens in each state, presumably to limit who can vote.
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who → instruct → state
Such a system might be used to override state voter rolls with potentially inaccurate lists.
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system → use → lists
That portion of the order was put on hold in a different legal challenge, but the administration has appealed to the Supreme Court, which will soon seperately decide whether DHS can use it.
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DHS → put → it
This means that the threat of administration meddling in the midterms through this executive order has not disappeared.
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administration → mean → order
Trump’s executive order is a massive power grab that aimed to usurp states’ authority to run their own elections and radically transform the role of the Postal Service from delivering the mail to determining who receives a ballot according to Trump’s whims.
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who → aim → whims
“Never before has USPS attempted to interfere with elections in this way, let alone a fast-approaching election,” the 23 states challenging the rule told the court.
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states → attempt → court
“And nothing in federal law authorizes USPS to refuse to deliver ballots.”
In addition to the scheme’s obvious illegality, election officials have repeatedly told courts it would be impossible to implement six weeks before the midterms.
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it → authorize → midterms
“In some States, unrebutted evidence establishes that compliance with USPS’ rule would be impossible ahead of the midterms, meaning that millions of voters would be unable to vote by mail and some would not be able to vote at all,” the 23 states challenging the rule wrote.
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states → establish → rule
“In the remaining States, there would be chaos—and a significant risk that millions more voters would be denied the ability to vote.”
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voters → remain → ability
A Postal Service whistleblower told Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on August 31 that the new USPS system was “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed” and could lead to a “catastrophic failure which could derail the midterm elections.”
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which → tell → elections
…and 33 more, not listed.
The Aporia
