Will Supreme Court’s order on mail-in ballots impact voting in Illinois?
[August 26, 2026]
By Peter Hancock
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois election officials said Tuesday they are
conferring with Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office to determine how
Illinois could be affected by a U.S. Supreme Court order allowing the
Trump administration to proceed, at least for now, with implementing an
executive order that could greatly restrict access to mail-in ballots.
In an emergency order issued late Monday, the court lifted a stay that a
federal judge in Massachusetts had issued blocking the administration
from implementing Trump’s executive order.
Meanwhile, a separate injunction from the same Massachusetts judge
blocking the U.S. Postal Service from implementing Trump’s order
technically remains in effect. But the Postal Service has nevertheless
moved forward to finalize those rules, apparently clearing the way for
the new restrictions to take effect one month before Illinois begins
sending out mail ballots to voters who have requested them and early
voting officially begins for the Nov. 3 midterms.
But Tazwell County Clerk and Recorder of Deeds John Ackerman said in a
statement Tuesday he did not believe the court’s ruling will have any
immediate impact.
“At this time, we are proceeding forward with plans to mail out all
requested Vote-By-Mail Ballots on September 24th, the first day of Early
Voting for the November 3rd, 2026 Gubernatorial Election,” Ackerman
said.
David Becker, a national election law expert and executive director of
the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, said in a
statement Monday night that the court’s order “seemed to create complete
chaos leading up to the midterm elections, waiting weeks after an
administration filing — and just days before mail ballots go out — to
completely rewrite the rules of the election.”
Executive order’s path through courts
On March 31, President Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled
“Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.”
It calls on the Department of Homeland Security to create a “State
Citizenship List” for each state identifying residents of that state who
are confirmed to be U.S. citizens who will be 18 years of age or older
at the time of the upcoming election.
It also directs the U.S. Postal Service to develop administrative
regulations that would prohibit mail carriers from transmitting mail
ballots to or from anyone who is not included on those lists.
Illinois was among the 23 states and Washington, D.C., that sued to
block the proposed rules.
On June 18, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled in favor of the
plaintiffs, declaring major parts of the executive order “legally void”
because they exceeded the president’s authority and violate provisions
of the U.S. Constitution that give states the authority to determine
voter eligibility in federal elections.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals later denied the administration’s
request to stay the order, pending appeal of Talwani’s decision.
Meanwhile, as that case was proceeding, the Postal Service continued
moving forward to enact new administrative rules to implement Trump’s
order. On July 2, Gov. JB Pritzker joined a coalition of eight other
Democratic governors in submitting written comments opposing the rule.
On Aug. 11, Talwani issued a separate injunction, blocking the Postal
Service from finalizing those rules. But on Friday, Aug. 21, the Postal
Service finalized them anyway, prompting U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi,
D-Illinois, to call for the removal of the Postmaster General David
Steiner.
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A vote-by-mail drop box is pictured in Springfield, blocks away from
the Illinois Capitol. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
“As a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, I am renewing my
call for Steiner to resign and, if he refuses, for the Postal Service
Board of Governors to remove him,” Krishnamoorthi said in a statement.
“The Postal Service should deliver ballots, not decide who gets to vote,
and I will fight every effort by this Administration to disenfranchise
the American people.”
In its order Monday, a divided Supreme Court granted the Trump
administration’s motion to stay the order, pending final disposition of
the case at the First Circuit and, if necessary, a further appeal to the
Supreme Court itself.
The majority opinion said Trump was likely to win on appeal because the
lower court lacked jurisdiction to issue the injunction. It said the
states had not shown how they were currently being injured by the order
or how they would suffer injury in the future if it were implemented.
The majority also rejected the argument that the executive order
infringed on states’ “sovereign authority” to create election rules.
But it also left open the possibility of additional challenges as the
order is implemented.
“On that score, time will tell. But the Order itself does not harm the
States, so the District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government
from trying to implement it,” the unsigned opinion stated.
The court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and
Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
“Today’s decision does not address whether the President’s attempts to
interfere with States’ administration of the November 2026 elections are
lawful,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by Kagan. “Nor
does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or
statutory authority to implement the President’s directives. Instead,
today’s decision merely postpones adjudication of those challenges.”
‘Deeply troubling’
Gov. JB Pritzker issued a statement Monday evening calling the decision
“deeply troubling.”
“We are weeks away from voting in the midterms and the President is
trying to put fear in Americans about the security of our elections,
rewrite the rules, and put the federal government between voters and
their ballots,” he said. “Illinois will continue to administer free and
fair elections in our state while fighting every attack on voter’s
rights.”
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, the ranking member of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, also criticized the ruling in a statement Tuesday
but emphasized the case is still open.
“Yesterday’s Supreme Court order is a temporary procedural win for
President Trump as he attempts to pursue these lawless goals — but it
doesn’t change the reality that the Constitution empowers the states to
run our elections, and the rule of law must prevail as this litigation
continues,” he said.
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