The Supreme Court on Thursday prevented Missouri from using a new congressional map favoring Republicans in November’s elections and separately continued considering a Trump administration appeal involving mail-in voting. The map order keeps a plan intended to give Republicans an additional U.S. House seat from taking effect while litigation proceeds, while the mail-in voting dispute is fully briefed and could be decided at any time.
In a brief, unsigned order, the justices granted a request from organizers of a referendum on Missouri’s new congressional map. The court paused a federal judge’s ruling that would have allowed the state to use the map in the upcoming elections. The order leaves the map unavailable while the underlying legal dispute moves forward.
The separate mail-in voting case concerns a new U.S. Postal Service rule that would tighten requirements before the November congressional elections. The Trump administration appealed the dispute to the Supreme Court again on Sunday, seeking to lift a district court injunction that prevented the rule’s implementation. States and civic groups challenging the order filed their responses on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to allow the administration to implement the rule. According to the account cited by SCOTUSblog, the appeals court found no error in the district court’s conclusion that allowing the rule to take effect would likely disenfranchise millions of voters while producing minimal, if any, gains in combating voter fraud. The administration had already asked the Supreme Court to lift the injunction before the 1st Circuit issued its decision, leaving the rule’s immediate fate with the justices.
The administration also has asked the Supreme Court to permit use of the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to identify noncitizens on state voter rolls. A response to that request is due next Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT. The Missouri map order and the pending voting-related requests place multiple election disputes before the court ahead of November’s elections.