A court on Monday denied the Trump administration's request to allow major changes to mail-in voting to proceed while a court case against them goes on.
However, the judge ruled that the US Postal Service can start creating an online portal to keep track of who is allowed to vote. States can also submit their ballots to the USPS for approval on their ballot design. Participation in these steps is at states' discretion and not a requirement.
To help make sense of the rapid changes, Scripps News spoke with David Becker, the executive director for the nonpartisan Center of Election Innovation and Research.
"Mail voting is almost certainly going to proceed in 2026 as it always has for voters," Becker said. "They should understand if mail voting is the way they want to choose to vote, that is still going to be available to them. They should probably take extra precautions to make sure their ballots get in in a reasonable amount of time. And then if possible, return their mail ballot in person at a drop box or a location that the state authorizes for receipt of mail ballots rather than returning their mail ballots in the postal mail."
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The bottom line, he said, is that voters can expect mail-in ballots to work as usual.
"It's simply too late to radically change the rules of mail voting, even if it were a good idea," Becker said. "And it's not."
