Tonight the Supreme Court told Donald Trump what we’ve been telling you since March: the president does not get to decide whose vote gets counted.
The Court rejected the administration’s emergency demand to unleash its new Postal Service scheme before the midterms, leaving in place a federal injunction and declaring that Trump’s lawyers are unlikely to win on the merits. Only Justices Alito and Thomas dissented. Every other member of the Court said “no.”
Under Trump’s executive order, the president would have effectively had the power to decide which voters’ ballots got delivered across the United States — a draconian move that could have severely compromised the integrity of the election. In theory, it would’ve allowed the president to prevent the delivery of any ballot of a voter deemed by the Trump administration to be “ineligible.” Yet the president wanted voters to trust that he was only hunting for “noncitizen” voters. What’s more, a postal whistleblower told Congress that whether or not the system was constitutional, it was so rushed that a single scanning error could get entire batches of ballots rejected, disenfranchising thousands of American voters at once.
When Trump signed this order in the spring, we called it an unconstitutional federal takeover of American elections, dressed up as fraud prevention. We didn’t just say it. DEFIANCE.org provided funding for two of the organizations suing the Trump administration over the order — the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy Defenders Fund — as well as Whistleblower Aid, the group representing the USPS whistleblower who came forward. We brought experts together to pick it apart and expose unknown elements that could endanger our democracy. This is why we exist. We crowd-source support to fight corruption. And tonight we celebrate with our pro-democracy partners who made this happen.
Judge after judge agreed on the egregiousness of Trump’s scheme (including just last night, when a Trump-appointed judge in Washington ruled that Congress empowered the Postal Service to move the mail, not to police democracy). Meanwhile the administration has produced zero evidence of mail voting fraud in court, and even Republican election officials in vote-by-mail Utah begged the justices not to unleash the chaos. Oh, and Trump himself voted by mail in Florida this year. The man wants two sets of rules… one for him and one for you.
But there’s a big caveat we are going to keep our eyes on. Justice Kavanaugh wrote separately to say the rule might survive legally someday; it simply can’t be crammed into an election already underway. So this is a shield for November, and the fight over 2028 is already forming. I can guarantee you the Trump administration will try to put this in place once more… and once more, we will fight it.
I was over by the Supreme Court tonight when the decision came down. We’re filming a micro-documentary for the midterms about corruption in Washington, D.C. And as I watched the sun set on the high court, I worried about the possibility that they might let Trump get away with part of this ballot-snatching plot. Moments later, they threw down the gauntlet.
So tonight, just know this. Mail-in ballots are safe from Trump’s illegal order, and many are already being sent out across Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, with more states to follow. You can request yours. Vote early. Vote by mail with confidence, but vote in person wherever you can, and as early as you can.
Our mission is now clearer than ever: make these elections too big to rig.
Your friend, in defiance,
P.S. DEFIANCE.org is a nonprofit. This “club for the courageous” — and all the actions we take each week to fight Trump’s corruption — are funded by ordinary folks like you. Become a member if you want to fight like hell to save our democracy. As long as Trump keeps flooding the zone with corruption, we’ll keep flooding it back with sunlight.
But look who agreed with Trump: ass lickers Alioto and Thomas.
Finally! And you don't have to guess who desented. And Kavanaugh's wiggle is not a suprise. What consituti9n are they reading or writing?