2026-06-29T21:04:34.479Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/29/politics/mail-in-ballots-trump-supreme-court-election
最高法院的裁决允许十多个州保留选举后邮寄选票的宽限期，这对中期选举前的唐纳德·特朗普总统和共和党人来说是一次挫败，但共和党仍有可能在即将到来的一系列与选举相关的重大案件中取得重大胜利。
周一，两名由共和党任命的大法官与三名自由派大法官联手驳回了共和党人的主张，后者称联邦法律不允许各州计算在选举日之后寄到选举办公室的、盖有邮戳的邮寄选票。该裁决维持了密西西比州为期五天的邮寄选票宽限期——此前美国第五巡回上诉法院曾否决了这一规定。此前，特朗普曾试图单方面惩罚那些对选举日之后收到的邮寄选票进行计票的州。
但在一项未受广泛关注的举措中，最高法院受理了另一桩案件，这可能会帮助特朗普和共和党以防止非公民投票为由收紧选民规则。在下一个开庭期，大法官们将考虑恢复亚利桑那州一项要求提供公民身份证明才能投票的法律的部分条款。这起名为“共和党全国委员会诉Mi Familia Vota”的案件，还可能让各州得以在选举前数日至数周内大规模清除涉嫌非公民的选民。
这起案件不太可能在中期选举前审结，但有望在2028年大选前得到解决。它契合特朗普的议程：推动采取更激进的行动遏制非公民投票——尽管研究表明这种情况非常罕见——即便这些手段可能也会剥夺符合资格的选民的投票权。
“周一裁决以有利于选民的方式维护了州权，”加州大学洛杉矶分校选举法教授理查德·哈森说道。
“Mi Familia案则是牺牲选民利益来维护州权，”哈森告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）。
两起案件归根结底都涉及对国会通过的法律的解读，曾在拜登政府时期担任白宫选举事务顾问的洛约拉法学院教授贾斯汀·莱维特指出。周一，最高法院表示，国会在规范11月的联邦选举日时，并未打算限制邮寄选票的接收截止日期。
莱维特表示，亚利桑那州的案件更为复杂，因为相关法律——《全国选民登记法》——不如邮寄选票截止日期案核心的联邦法规那样明确。
“我不认为（周一的裁决）预示着法院在《全国选民登记法》相关案件上的态度，”他说。
特朗普和共和党在邮寄选票截止日期问题上失利之际，他们今年春天刚取得了一场更大的胜利：最高法院大幅削弱了《选举权法案》剩余的保护条款，使得少数族裔选民基于该法案禁止选举中的种族歧视条款挑战选区划分计划变得更加困难。
由保守派多数大法官以6票对3票作出的这项裁决——由大法官塞缪尔·阿利托撰写意见——给予各州更多自由进行选区划分，损害了有色人种选民的利益。
保守派多数表示，此举将法院对《选举权法案》的理解与宪法保持一致。
该裁决很快被共和党人利用，以取消南部各州根据《选举权法案》划定的民主党掌控的国会选区。2028年大选前，更多选区将被重新划分，削弱少数族裔的代表权——不仅在联邦层面，也包括州和地方民选机构。
这是最高法院第三次大幅削弱《选举权法案》，转而支持各州自行规范选举的权力。近年来，保守派多数还关闭了联邦法院监管党派选区划分的大门，并且增加了基于宪法对种族选区划分提出质疑的难度。
“在诸多案件中，最高法院似乎都想摆脱处理选举相关问题的职责，”圣母大学法学院选举法教授德里克·穆勒说道。
周一涉及邮寄选票截止日期案的跨意识形态多数意见——由保守派大法官艾米·科尼·巴雷特撰写——强调这是一起“狭义”案件，未涉及任何宪法问题。
“选举日法规并未提及选票接收事宜，我们不能添加国会未写入的内容，”巴雷特写道，她的意见得到了首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨和法院三名自由派大法官的支持。未来国会仍有权推翻这些州的宽限期规定。
四名保守派大法官提出了异议，由阿利托撰写的异议意见称，多数派的裁决认可选举后邮寄选票的宽限期，会增加选举欺诈的风险。巴雷特的意见反驳称，这类政策选择应由立法机构决定，而国会的选举日法规并未对邮寄选票宽限期施加限制。
“联邦制不是党派问题，”穆勒说。“如果让各州自行其是，有时结果会对共和党有利，有时则会对民主党有利。”
共和党还从最高法院周一的另一项举措中获益：法院拒绝受理一项支持德克萨斯州法律的裁决，该法律规定为帮助选民填写邮寄选票的个人或团体提供帮助将面临刑事处罚。
不过，最高法院在另一起来自宾夕法尼亚州的案件中给了共和党一个“暂缓决定”。共和党正在上诉一项裁决，该裁决推翻了该州要求选民在邮寄选票信封上填写日期的规定。大法官周一要求就法院是否应受理此案提供更多简报，这一举措可能会让各州更容易维护那些在法庭上被质疑违宪的选民限制措施。
周二，也就是最高法院发布意见的最后一天，大法官们将裁决一起由共和党提起的案件，该案件旨在削弱竞选资金限制。
自重返白宫以来，特朗普一直执着于加强联邦政府对选举管理的控制。
特朗普对周一的裁决作出回应，要求国会通过他引以为傲的选举立法《拯救美国法案》，该法案目前在参议院停滞不前。他希望通过该法案严格限制邮寄投票。但众议院通过的该法案版本侧重于选民身份证和选民公民身份核查。
如果该法案获得通过——这看起来希望渺茫——它将部分推翻《全国选民登记法》。
与此同时，最高法院对亚利桑那州法律的最终裁决，可能会决定各州实施自身法规以实现相同的选民身份核查目标的能力。
“特朗普可能无法通过他的《拯救美国法案》，但到2028年，许多共和党州可能会出台迷你版的《拯救美国法案》，”哈森说道。
最高法院将审议的最关键问题是，《全国选民登记法》中禁止在选举前90天内开展“系统性”选民清除计划的条款，是否适用于针对涉嫌非公民的清除行动。
除亚利桑那州外，其他各州也曾试图在选举前数日至数周内开展此类大规模选民清除行动。下级法院以《全国选民登记法》所谓的“静默期”为由阻止了这些清除行动，但最高法院此前曾表达过不同意见，在2024年大选前数日发布紧急命令，允许弗吉尼亚州重启针对非公民的大规模选民清除计划。
The Supreme Court handed Trump an election case defeat. Is a bigger win for him coming?
2026-06-29T21:04:34.479Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/29/politics/mail-in-ballots-trump-supreme-court-election
The Supreme Court’s ruling letting more than a dozen states keep their post-election grace periods for mail ballots is a defeat for President Donald Trump and Republicans ahead of the midterms, but the GOP can still capture significant victories in major election-related cases coming further down the pipeline.
On Monday, two Republican-appointees joined the three liberal justices in rejecting GOP claims that federal law did not allow states to count postmarked mail ballots that arrive at election offices after Election Day. The ruling upheld Mississippi’s five-day mail ballot grace period — after the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals had struck it down. It comes after Trump last year tried to unilaterally punish states for counting mail ballots arrived after Election Day.
But in an under-the-radar maneuver, the Supreme Court took up a separate case that could help Trump and Republicans tighten voter rules in the name of preventing noncitizen voting. Next term, the justices will consider reviving parts of an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship for voting. The case — RNC v. Mi Familia Vota — could also give states the green light to conduct mass voter purges of suspected noncitizens in the days and the weeks before an election.
That case won’t likely be settled by the midterms, but stands to be resolved ahead of 2028. It fits into a Trump agenda of pushing for more aggressive action to clamp down on noncitizen voting — which studies have shown to be very rare — even if the tactics risk disenfranchising eligible voters as well.
The mail ballot case decided Monday “favored states’ rights in a way that benefited voters,” said Richard Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Mi Familia favors states’ rights against the interests of voters,” Hasen told CNN.
Both cases come down to interpreting laws passed by Congress, noted Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor who served as a White House adviser on voting during the Biden administration. On Monday, the court said that Congress did not intend to restrict ballot-receipt deadlines for mail ballots when it standardized the federal Election Day in November.
The Arizona case is more complicated, Levitt said, because that law in question — the National Voter Registration Act — is less clear than the federal statutes at the center of the ballot deadline case.
“I don’t think (Monday’s ruling) is a harbinger of what the court is going to do on the NVRA,” he said.
Trump and Republicans’ loss on mail ballot deadlines came after they secured a much bigger win earlier this spring, when the Supreme Court gutted what remained of the Voting Rights Act and made it much harder for minority voters to challenge redistricting plans on the basis of the VRA’s ban on racial discrimination in voting.
The 6-3 decision by the conservative majority — led by an opinion from Justice Samuel Alito — gives states much more freedom to gerrymander their maps to the detriment of voters of color.
The conservative majority said it was bringing courts’ understanding of the Voting Rights Act in line with the Constitution.
The ruling was quickly used by Republicans to eliminate Democratic-held congressional seats authorized under the Voting Rights Act in states across the South. More maps will be redrawn ahead of the 2028 election in a way that shrinks minority representation — not just at the federal level, but also in state and local elected bodies.
The decision was the third major decision to winnow down the VRA in favor of states’ ability to regulate elections as they see fit. The conservative majority had also, in recent years, shut the door for federal courts to police states for partisan gerrymanders and made it harder to bring constitutional challenges to racial gerrymanders.
“There are all these cases where the court seems to want to be out of the business of dealing with election issues,” said Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School.
Monday’s opinion for the cross-ideological majority in mail ballot deadline case — an opinion written by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett — stressed that it was a “narrow” case that didn’t deal with any constitutional issues.
“The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt and we cannot add to the words Congress chose,” Barrett wrote, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals. Nothing would stop Congress in the future from overriding those state grace periods.
Four conservatives dissented in an opinion written by Alito that claimed the majority’s ruling, by sanctioning post-election mail ballot deadlines, was increasing the risk of election fraud. Barrett’s opinion countered that it was up to legislatures to make those kinds of policy choices, and Congress’ Election Day statute had not imposed a restriction on mail ballot grace periods.
“Federalism is not a partisan issue,” Muller said. “If you are letting the states do different things, sometimes they’re going to benefit Republicans and sometimes they’re going to benefit Democrats.”
Republicans benefited from another move by the justices Monday, when the Supreme Court refused to take up a ruling that OKed a Texas law that bars — with criminal penalties — compensation for individuals or groups that help voters fill out their mail ballots.
However, the GOP got a punt from the high court in another case, coming out of Pennsylvania. Republicans are appealing a decision that struck down the state’s requirement that voters write the date on their mail ballot envelopes. The justices on Monday asked for more briefing on whether they should take up the case, which would could make it easier for states to defend voter restrictions that are challenged in court as unconstitutional.
Tuesday, the court’s final day for releasing opinions, the justices are set to decide a case brought by Republicans seeking to weaken campaign finance limits.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has been fixated on exerting more federal control over election administration
Trump responded to Monday’s ruling by demanding that Congress pass his prized piece of elections legislation, the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate. He wants to use that bill to severely restrict mail voting. But the version of the legislation that has passed in the House is focused on voter ID and citizenship verification of voters.
If it was passed, which appears to be a long shot, it would override parts of the National Voter Registration Act.
In the meantime, the Supreme Court’s ultimate ruling on the Arizona law could determine that ability of states to implement their own statutes that would achieve the same goals on voter proof of citizenship.
“Trump may not get his SAVE Act, but we could get mini-SAVE Acts in lots of Republican states by 2028,” Hasen said.
The most consequential question the court will be considering is whether a provision of the NVRA that bars “systematic” voter removal programs within 90 days of an election applies to purges aimed at suspected non-citizens.
Other states, in addition to Arizona, have tried to conduct such mass purges in the days and weeks before an election. Lower courts have blocked those purges because of the NVRA’s so-called quiet period, but the Supreme Court has previously signaled a different view, having issued an emergency order just days before the 2024 election to let Virginia restart a mass purge aimed at noncitizens.
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