Maryland Democrats called it election rigging. The order itself was about standing and timing, not the merits.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Maryland’s top Democrats wasted no time reacting to Monday’s Supreme Court order on President Trump’s mail-voting executive order, and the words they reached for were strong ones: rigging, disenfranchisement, a president rewriting the rules of his own race.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen posted that the ruling was “another step forward in advancing Trump’s effort to rig the upcoming elections.” Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller wrote that “the president running in this election is now allowed to change its rules.” Attorney General Anthony Brown put out a statement saying the legal fight over the order isn’t finished. Rep. April McClain Delaney told her followers that USPS was being handed the power to decide whose ballots get delivered.
None of that is quite what the Court decided.
There are real constitutional questions tangled up in Trump’s order, and Maryland’s elected officials are entitled to raise them. But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 order on Monday did not rule that the mail-voting order is legal, and it did not rule that it’s illegal either. It ruled on something narrower: whether the states who sued had the right to sue when they did.
What the order actually says
The case is Trump v. California, No. 26A124, filed alongside a companion case, Alabama v. California, No. 26A139. It grew out of a lawsuit filed by California, Massachusetts, Nevada, Washington, and 19 other Democratic-led states plus the District of Columbia, challenging Sections 2 and 3 of Trump’s executive order.
- Section 2 directs the Department of Homeland Security, where feasible and consistent with law, to compile state-by-state citizenship lists tied to voter eligibility, and directs the attorney general to prioritize enforcement against ballots issued to ineligible voters.
- Section 3 directed the U.S. Postal Service to begin a rulemaking process governing mail ballots, including new envelope design and tracking-barcode requirements.
A federal judge in Massachusetts, Indira Talwani, ruled in June that Sections 2 and 3 were unlawful and entered a permanent injunction. The First Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause that ruling. The administration then asked the Supreme Court to step in.
On Aug. 24, the Court’s conservative majority granted a stay, in an unsigned, per curiam order, with Justice Sotomayor dissenting (joined by Justice Kagan) and Justice Jackson dissenting separately. The majority’s reasoning was procedural: at the point the states filed suit, Section 3 had only directed USPS to propose a rule. USPS hadn’t yet issued anything final. The Court’s own words on that point are worth quoting directly:
“Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule.”
That’s a ruling that the states sued too early, not a ruling that the underlying order is constitutional. The Court said as much itself, noting its decision “does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful.” As the justices put it, on the merits, “time will tell.”
“That’s a ruling that the states sued too early, not a ruling that the underlying order is constitutional.”
Where the Maryland statements overstate the ruling
“The justices didn’t find that Trump was trying to manipulate the outcome of an election.”
Van Hollen’s “rigging” language is his own, posted to X within minutes of the decision. It’s a political characterization, not a legal one, and the Court’s order doesn’t support it. The justices didn’t find that Trump was trying to manipulate the outcome of an election. They found that a lawsuit filed against a not-yet-final agency proposal came before there was a final agency action to sue over. If USPS’s final rule harms the states, the Court said directly, they’re free to challenge that rule instead.
Miller’s post has a factual problem sitting inside it. Trump is not on Maryland’s Nov. 3 ballot. Calling him “the president running in this election” blurs a real and separate concern: a sitting president’s administration shaping mail-voting rules ahead of a midterm where control of Congress is at stake, with something the ruling didn’t touch at all: a candidate rewriting rules for his own race. Miller was on firmer ground when she noted the Court called its own decision provisional. That part checks out.
“Trump is not on Maryland’s Nov. 3 ballot.”
Brown’s statement is closer to the mark, but it’s incomplete. His office put out a statement arguing the Constitution “entrusts our elections to the states,” not the president or USPS. There’s a legitimate separation-of-powers argument buried in that line: presidents don’t have unlimited authority to rewrite election administration by executive order. But the Constitution’s Elections Clause also gives Congress the power to “make or alter” the states’ rules for congressional elections. Brown’s formulation leaves that branch out entirely. The real dispute isn’t states versus Washington in the abstract. It’s whether Congress ever authorized USPS or DHS to do what the order asks of them.
“The real dispute isn’t states versus Washington in the abstract. It’s whether Congress ever authorized USPS or DHS to do what the order asks of them.”
McClain Delaney’s post compresses a technical rule into a scarier one than the text supports. She wrote that the rule leaves states with a stark choice: “hand Washington your voter list, or USPS stops delivering your ballots.” USPS’s own rulemaking says the opposite of what that implies. The agency states it will not determine voter eligibility, audit state voter rolls, or decide whether a completed ballot gets counted. States keep control over who’s on their lists. What the final rule does do is set new mailing standards, including barcodes and envelope specifications, and it does give USPS a mechanism to decline ballot mail that doesn’t meet those standards. That’s a real and arguably serious policy dispute. It is not the same as a mail carrier deciding whose vote counts.
The bigger story: this isn’t over, and it’s moving fast
Here’s what the political reactions mostly skipped: the legal fight didn’t end Monday. It sped up.
- USPS finalized its rule under Section 3 just days before the Supreme Court ruled, which is exactly the kind of final agency action the Court said was missing from the original lawsuit.
- A second, separate nationwide injunction, issued Aug. 11 by the same Judge Talwani in a case brought by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, still blocks USPS from enforcing Section 3 for the 2026 election. That injunction was not before the Supreme Court on Monday and remains in effect.
- Within hours of winning at the Supreme Court, the Justice Department filed an emergency motion asking Talwani to vacate that second injunction immediately, arguing the same standing and ripeness problem applies to it.
- DOJ asked for a ruling by 5:30 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Aug. 25. If Talwani doesn’t act, the Solicitor General has already authorized an emergency appeal to the First Circuit.
“The states’ injunction has been stayed. The League of Women Voters injunction is still standing.”
So as of this writing, there are effectively two tracks. The states’ injunction has been stayed. The League of Women Voters injunction is still standing, and the administration is trying to knock it down before Tuesday evening.
There’s also a timing problem that cuts against the administration, one that Justice Jackson leaned on hard in dissent. States like North Carolina are due to start mailing ballots to military and overseas voters as soon as Sept. 4. Retooling ballot envelopes, data transfers, and processing procedures on a matter of days is not a small operational lift, and Jackson warned the ruling injects “chaos and uncertainty” into election administration at the worst possible moment. Supporters of the order have an answer to that too: if a looming election date can permanently block any new rule, meaningful reforms become impossible, because an election is always approaching somewhere.
The bottom line
“Monday’s order didn’t resolve the constitutional fight. It resolved a threshold question about who could sue and when.”
Maryland’s Democratic leadership isn’t wrong that Trump’s order raises real constitutional questions. Whether Congress gave the executive branch enough statutory authority to do this, and whether the timeline leaves room for eligible voters to be mistakenly disenfranchised, are legitimate fights worth having in public.
But Monday’s order didn’t resolve any of that. It resolved a threshold question about who could sue and when. Treating a standing ruling as proof of a rigged election, or describing a sitting president as a midterm candidate, or leaving Congress out of a story about constitutional authority, isn’t reporting the decision. It’s getting ahead of it.
The next fight, over USPS’s actual final rule, is the one that will settle the merits. That fight is already underway, and it could produce another ruling within days.
Sources: Supreme Court order and dissents in Trump v. California, No. 26A124, and Alabama v. California, No. 26A139 (Aug. 24, 2026), via the Court’s official opinion release and SCOTUSblog’s case docket. Reporting on the ruling and its practical effect from NPR, Axios, NBC News, CNN and The Hill (Aug. 24-25, 2026). Reaction statements from Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, Attorney General Anthony Brown and Rep. April McClain Delaney, posted to X on Aug. 24-25, 2026. Details on the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts injunction and the Justice Department’s emergency motion to vacate, filed Aug. 24-25, 2026 in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Case No. 1:26-cv-11549-IT), via court filings and reporting from NPR and SCOTUS Wire.
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