The Supreme Court has denied the Trump adminstration's request to stay a lower court order blocking his Postal Service's new rule restricting the ways states can use mail-in ballots.
The ruling included a concurrence from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who stated the order is likely illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act because it doesn't give states adequate time to comply. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
Trump's order would have given USPS unprecedented new powers to refuse to deliver mail ballots in states that don't hand over troves of data about their voter rolls to the federal government.
The Supreme Court had initially overruled an earlier suit to stop USPS from writing the rule in the first place, saying such a block would be premature before the rule had actually been issued.
A lower court judge in Massachusetts lifted her orders in response to that, but issued a new block after the rule was actually written — which the Supreme Court's new order upholds.