President Donald Trump’s emergency appeal to limit the use of mail ballots is poised to test a 20-year-old Supreme Court principle that warns federal courts against making last-minute changes to voting rules. The “Purcell principle” has never been weighed in a Supreme Court case involving a federal election policy like Trump’s effort to give the US Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security a hand in screening state voter rolls for potential non-citizen voters.
Background on the Case
The president’s executive order, signed in March, would require states to submit lists of eligible voters to the US Postal Service, which would be barred from sending ballots to anyone not on those lists. It would also require states to use tracking barcodes on ballot envelopes and prioritize federal prosecution of state election officials who send or receive ballots to non-citizens or others ineligible to vote.
Federal courts in Boston blocked the order’s implementation, and Trump filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court last week. The appeal doesn’t deal with the merits of the president’s order, nor does it say anything about Purcell. However, if the court sides with Trump on any portion of the case, it will likely set up a showdown over the doctrine later this year.
Implications of the Case
The case could have practical implications for how the court handles the flood of litigation that will inevitably crash onto its docket this fall, ahead of the 2028 presidential election. Critics note that a majority of the court was fine allowing Louisiana to revert immediately to a Republican-friendly congressional map in May, even though absentee voting had already started for the primary under a different map.
According to Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, the Trump administration’s executive order on mail ballots is unprecedented, and the case may shed light on the court’s approach to Purcell. “Many of these decisions on Purcell have been handled on the shadow docket in a way that hasn’t necessarily garnered clear support of five justices,” Lakin said.
Original reporting: KEYT (Ventura/Santa Barbara) — read the source article.
