A U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing the Trump administration's mail-voting order to move forward does not immediately change how Bay State voters cast absentee and "no excuse" vote-by-mail ballots.
But that could change as Massachusetts election officials prepare to mail ballots for the important Nov. 3 midterm elections.
The Supreme Court on Monday lifted an order that had blocked parts of President Donald Trump's March executive order governing mail and absentee voting. The justices did not decide whether the president has the constitutional authority to impose the changes.
Instead, the court concluded that the 23 states challenging the order argued that Trump's order intruded on states' authority to administer elections and on Congress' power under the Constitution to make or change rules governing the "times, places and manner" of federal elections.
The court said the states, which included Massachusetts, sued too soon and had not shown the kind of concrete, imminent harm necessary to bring their claims when the lawsuit was filed.
On Wednesday, state Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said she co-led a coalition of 25 states in filing a lawsuit against the United States Postal Service, challenging its new rule that purports to grant USPS the authority to regulate mail voting in elections.
She said the coalition argues USPS's rule will prevent states from effectively administering their mail voting programs, putting voters at risk of being disenfranchised.
"Mail-in voting is safe, secure, and relied on by millions of voters, including the president himself," she said in a statement. "States have the constitutional authority to administer elections, not the president or the Postal Service.
"We're asking the court to immediately block this unlawful rule and protect the integrity of mail-in voting and the more than one million eligible Massachusetts voters who rely on this system."
She said 33.4 percent of Massachusetts voters cast their ballots via mail in the 2024 presidential election.
The Supreme Court ruling covered several parts of Trump's election order, but the piece most relevant to mail voting involved the Postal Service.
When the states sued, Trump had only directed the USPS to develop new rules for mailed ballots. The Postal Service finalized a rule requiring election offices to use approved, trackable envelopes for federal ballots and submit ballot-mailing information through a federal portal, but a separate federal court injunction currently prevents USPS from implementing those changes for the 2026 election.
The Trump administration is seeking to have that order lifted, and additional litigation is expected.
If the rule takes effect, state and local election offices would have to comply with the new envelope, barcode and reporting requirements. Voters would not have to sign up with USPS, and the Postal Service would not decide who is eligible to vote.
The reporting requirement is likely to draw particular scrutiny because the Trump administration is already collecting statewide voter-registration data through a separate Justice Department effort. The states that have fully complied so far are Republican-led. Iowa, for example, turned over its voter file in May, including sensitive identifying information.
The USPS rule would require a different disclosure: information identifying voters being sent mail ballots and the barcodes associated with those ballots.
The practical concern is that USPS could reject batches of ballots that do not meet the new requirements, forcing election officials to correct and resend them — a potentially significant problem as ballot-mailing dates approach.
That provision could become increasingly important as ballot-mailing dates approach.
Campbell said the Trump rules inflict "significant, irreparable harm on states by imposing burdensome mail voting requirements that risk disenfranchising eligible voters."
With the start of the general election season weeks away, she said, states must bear the cost of redesigning their mail ballot envelopes and securing USPS review and approval before they can even register mail voters with USPS.
She said that means that within a matter of weeks and without any additional resources, state election officials must also develop new systems to communicate mail voter lists to USPS to ensure that every eligible voter who is entitled to a mail ballot receives one.
She said states must also create new guidance for election officials, train them on the new procedures, and educate the public about the changes prior to the upcoming election. But she said even if states were to meet these "enormous administrative and financial burdens," the rule could still result in eligible voters not receiving their ballots due to administrative errors or flaws in the "rushed and untested new procedures."
Importantly, the Supreme Court's ruling does not uphold Trump's mail-voting policies as constitutional.
The court's conservative majority instead focused on whether the states had standing to challenge the executive order when they filed their lawsuit.
The court said the executive order itself largely directed federal officials to take future actions and did not require states to do anything.
At the time the lawsuit was filed, the Postal Service had not adopted its final rule, so the majority said predictions about how the federal government would ultimately implement the order — and how states would be affected — were too speculative.
That leaves open the possibility of new challenges based on actions federal agencies have taken since then.
The timing could make those fights significant. The first ballots for military and overseas voters are scheduled to begin going out in early September, followed by absentee and mail ballots for other voters under individual state deadlines.
For now, voters should continue following the Bay State's existing instructions for requesting and returning mail or absentee ballots unless state or local election officials announce a change.
No-excuse early voting by mail is available in Massachusetts for all state elections, state primaries, presidential primaries and elections, as well as most local elections.
These ballots are known as "Vote by Mail" ballots and can be requested through the Secretary of State's Office using a Vote by Mail Application.
While early Vote by Mail ballots are more common, there are special circumstances where voters may need to use the Absentee Ballot application to apply for an absentee ballot instead.
A mail-in application must reach your local election officials by 5 p.m. on the 5th business day before the election. No matter when the application is postmarked, the application must be at the local election office by the deadline.
Ballots must reach the local election office or drop box by close of polls on Election Day in order to be counted.
The only exception is for ballots returned by mail in the biennial state election in November, when three extra days are allowed for ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive in the mail.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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