The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow enforcement of an executive order that would condition mail-ballot delivery on a new federal citizenship list while litigation continues. The Justice Department filed an emergency request Monday asking the Supreme Court to lift lower-court restrictions on President Trump's March executive order concerning citizenship verification and mail voting.
The order directs the federal government to create state-specific lists of people confirmed as U.S. citizens who will be at least 18 and resident in the state for an upcoming federal election. It also directs the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only for people included on the new list, a condition that challengers say exceeds presidential authority over federal elections.
Lower courts blocked central provisions while lawsuits brought by states and voting-rights groups proceed, and the administration asked for relief in time to affect the November midterms. AP reported that roughly 30 percent of ballots in the 2024 election were cast by mail, establishing the scale of voting potentially touched by the dispute.
The Supreme Court had not requested a public response, scheduled argument or ruled on the application by the edition cutoff.
The Constitution assigns states primary responsibility for election administration while giving Congress power to regulate the times, places and manner of congressional elections. Emergency applications can produce temporary orders without resolving the full merits, meaning any immediate ruling could govern the election while broader constitutional and statutory claims remain open.
The citizenship-list directive also depends on federal and state data matching, a process that can produce unresolved records when names, addresses or agency files differ. As of the edition cutoff, The exact docket materials were still developing, and no final judicial finding had established whether the order is lawful or operationally workable. The next scheduled factual records include the Court's briefing schedule and any interim order and implementation guidance from election officials and the Postal Service.