Supreme Court on Trump: A dangerous game against time

Supreme Court agrees with Trump

Now the race against time begins

It is a ruling of particular significance: the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump. However, only temporarily. Now a race against the clock begins.

Nine judges decide on the Supreme Court of the USA about the fate of the country. Six of them are considered conservative, some of them as representatives of an ancient, highly controversial legal interpretation and supporters of the Trump administration’s legal course. Now the three liberal judges once again warned their colleagues of the serious consequences for the democratic constitutional order of the USA that the court’s decision could have.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson appealed to her conservative colleagues not to support Trump’s course because it “unnecessarily brings chaos and uncertainty to the upcoming midterm elections.” But it didn’t help. The Supreme Court granted the US government’s request to interfere with voting rights with a conservative majority of judges. This means that Trump and his people can initially stick to their planned restrictions on postal voting before the important congressional elections in November.

However, only provisionally, because the verdict was made as part of an emergency decision. A final judicial assessment is still pending. Therefore, the states have the opportunity to file a lawsuit again against Trump’s plans in the coming months as the midterm elections approach. Further legal disputes are therefore inevitable.

It’s a race against time for the Democrats. Because preparations for the midterms at the beginning of November will begin soon. The first postal voting documents will be sent out in the coming weeks. In the democratic camp there is a fear that democratic voters will be deliberately disadvantaged. They tend to vote by mail slightly more often than Republicans.

At its core, the voting law change is about the following: Trump’s decree issued in March instructs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of US citizens eligible to vote for each state. The US Postal Service would then move from simply delivering postal voting documents to being a controlling authority. Because it would then only be allowed to deliver ballot papers to voters on approved lists. The whole thing is supposed to be orchestrated by the Department of Homeland Security, a federal agency whose boss, Markwayne Mullin, is a die-hard Trump loyalist.

A coalition of 23 predominantly Democratic states and the capital are against the plan Washington sued. According to the US Constitution, the states determine the requirements for eligibility to vote. States had argued that trying to change the rules shortly before the election could deprive many voters of their right to vote.

In June, this coalition was initially proven right before a lower court. A judge in Boston had emphasized that the status quo must be maintained for the upcoming election. There would be less and less time to educate voters about how the stricter rules could affect them if they wanted to vote by postal vote. Trump’s order causes confusion and there is a threat of chaos, she explained.