Mail ballots and the Court

Midterms are weeks away. The justices are the ones still working.

By Everett Kane

Congress is mostly gone. Pro forma sessions. A stopgap signed through Dec. 11. The House cut its September calendar short and heads for the campaign trail when it comes back the week of the 14th. That is how a majority spends the weeks before a midterm: clear the shutdown risk, then leave town.

The real fight is at the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration asked the justices to pause a Boston federal judge’s order that blocks parts of a U.S. Postal Service rule on mail-in-ballots. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Court the order undercuts efforts to stop the mails from being used for voter fraud — fraud that dilutes lawful votes and hollows out public confidence. California, joined by more than twenty states and the District of Columbia, urged the Court to leave the injunction in place. They warn some states cannot comply before November and that millions of mail voters could be stranded.

That is the choice. Integrity rules that arrive late, or a system that shrugs and hopes the envelopes hold.

A second track landed this week. The administration asked the Court to clear use of a revamped Homeland Security SAVE database so states can check citizenship on voter rolls. A D.C. judge had blocked the current version. Sauer called that order a threat to election integrity with the midterms too close for a delayed fix.

States run elections. That is the Constitution. It is not a license for sloppy rolls, anonymous ballots, or a Postal Service that invents process mid-cycle without the country watching. If the rule is lawful, let it run. If it is not, kill it clean. Do not leave fifty secretaries of state guessing in October.

November 3 is not a seminar. It is a national decision. The Court should say what the law allows before the first wave of ballots is already in the mail. Delay is its own verdict.

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