Trump's mail-in voting plan fails, but is another one on its way?

Christy Strawser (0:00)

The day's biggest stories, the people behind the headlines, the conversations you won't hear anywhere else.

I'm Christy Strawser. You're listening to Audacy's On Deadline. Let's start by checking in on a major Supreme Court decision. Here's KYW in Philly.

SPEAKER_2 (0:16)

The Supreme Court rejected President Trump's plans to restrict mail ballots for the upcoming midterms. KYW's Tim Jimenez has the story.

Tim Jimenez (0:24)

The Supreme Court isn't touching a federal judge's injunction that blocks the post office from enforcing key aspects of a new rule that would have restricted mail ballots. That was the majority opinion with justices Alito and Thomas dissenting. So states and counties can proceed with mail ballots as normal for the midterms. The Trump administration, in an effort to curb alleged fraud, wanted states to submit lists of eligible voters to an online portal. And the post office would have the power to refuse ballot delivery to states that didn't comply. Two dozen states sued to stop all of that, and critics say there is no evidence of widespread fraud to begin with. Lauren Christella, the president and CEO of government watchdog, the Committee of 70, says such changes, especially with little time to prepare, would create such a big mess.

Lauren Cristella (1:05)

So it could have jeopardized thousands potentially of voters and their ballots this election. So seeing that this won't be happening is a huge relief.

Tim Jimenez (1:16)

In a statement, New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill said, states run elections, not Donald Trump.

SPEAKER_5 (1:23)

Political Analyst Mark Sandelow. Mark, good morning. So what does this mean for the November midterms? Business as usual?

Mark Sandelow (1:31)

It is the status quo. It means in California, ballots are going to go out to all registered voters the first week in October. The president had demanded all sorts of restrictions that would have changed the process of mailing ballots. The Supreme Court last night, it did not rule the president had no right to do that. What it said was that the legal objections to the president doing it right now, just before the elections, had at least a reasonable chance of success and therefore couldn't be done at the last moment. There are a number of states, Alabama, North Carolina, Wisconsin, that have already started sending people ballots. And according to Justice Kavanaugh, it would be arbitrary and capricious to institute these rules now.

So they'll wait for it to be litigated to see whether they can be instituted in the future.

SPEAKER_5 (2:22)

So the president's plan maybe is not entirely dead. Could we see changes by the 2028 election?

Mark Sandelow (2:30)

Absolutely. So what the president wants is for every state to submit a list of its legitimate registered voters. Then the federal government will verify those. And then the post office will only send ballots to those people the federal government says should receive ballots. Now, there's lots of concerns with that. I mean, partly there's a lot of concern the federal government is going to start to eliminate people on suspicion that they are not registered or they're not citizens, and they may be wrong in that. But the most fundamental complaint is that the Constitution says that the administration of elections is in the hands of the state, not the federal government. So it will be a dispute before the Supreme Court, sometime over the course of the next year, as to whether or not that piece of the Constitution or the piece of the Constitution that does give the president control over the post office takes precedent.

Yes, this could certainly happen in time for 2028, but the big difference here is that Donald Trump will not be on the ballot or have a stake in the same way in the 2028 election, and none of his accusations about mail balloting being fraudulent have ever been supported by facts. And it's questionable as to whether or not any party is going to want to pursue this once this election is over.

SPEAKER_5 (3:47)

You know, I don't know if it's a devil's advocate or just a legit question. What is wrong with having state election officials verify that those receiving ballots are, as you put it, legitimate voters?

Mark Sandelow (4:00)

Absolutely nothing wrong with the state verifying. And in fact, California says, of course, it does verify. The issue here is whether or not then the federal government has the ability to oversee the state's ability to do that. There is great concern due to the misinformation that's out there that if you have 20 people registered under the name Aurelio Rodriguez, that suddenly the federal government is going to say, oh, there can't be that many Rodriguez's and they'll start to eliminate some. Whereas state officials might be more aware of what goes on in their state. And again, the Constitution says that while the federal government sets the date for federal election, it's the states, not the federal government, that administer them.