The Supreme Court dismissed one of two lawsuits blocking the Trump administration from implementing changes to U.S. Postal Service regulations regarding mail-in ballots, saying that states lacked standing because they could not prove that the regulations would cause “concrete harm.”
California and 23 other states sued the federal government after a White House executive order directed USPS to begin creating “State Citizenship Lists” for each state, consisting of voters who, according to federal data, are eligible to receive mail-in ballots.
The order states that the lists will be updated and transmitted to states 60 days before the election, and states that “An individual’s identification on the State Citizenship List does not indicate that the individual has been properly registered to vote in the State” and that “there may be State laws, not reflected in the State Citizenship List, that preclude voter registration, or the individual may choose not to be registered.”
That provision was thrown out by two federal courts, who found them unconstitutional and likely to result in the federal government intruding on the constitutional rights of states to run their elections.
But the Supreme Court’s conservative majority voted 6-3 to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that states have no standing to sue because “The Order is an internal directive from the President to his subordinates mandating that certain agencies pursue certain policies” and the order “neither requires nor forbids anything of anyone outside the executive branch.”
Because the section of the order is prefaced to say that the Secretary of Homeland Security will transmit the lists “to the extent feasible and consistent with applicable law,” the majority said the claims of harm by states are, at this point, entirely speculative.
“The true ‘source of any injury’ to the States would be the downstream action that the Secretary ‘might take in the future’ to implement” the USPS sections,” the court wrote. “Emphasis on might.”
At the same time, another section directs the Department of Justice to prioritize investigation and prosecution of state and local election officials who “knowingly” allow instances of non-citizen voting.
The majority argued the DOJ directive was internal guidance that neither regulated states’ voter registration nor limited states’ authority to set their own election rules. Since it only prioritized enforcement of existing laws, the court said it did “nothing” to states.