08/25/2026
The Supreme Court just cleared the way for President Trump's mail-voting executive order to move forward, although the impacts - if any - are still unclear.
Here's what happened: The Court lifted a lower-court injunction that had been blocking parts of Trump's March executive order, which directs the Postal Service to restrict mail ballots and pushes federal agencies to build voter eligibility lists. The ruling covers 23 states and D.C. — including states that sued specifically because they said this kind of disruption, this close to an election, could cause real chaos for voters.
Let's be clear about what this decision does and doesn't do:
❌ It does NOT rule that Trump's order is constitutional or lawful.
❌ It does NOT mean the Postal Service can fully implement these changes yet — a separate nationwide block from a federal judge in Massachusetts is still in place.
✅ It DOES let the administration keep pushing forward while the legal fight continues, with the clock ticking toward November.
Three Justices dissented, warning that the decision "needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections.”
What does this mean for Alaska?
Alaska isn't one of the 23 states that sued over this order — our state government didn't join that fight. But that doesn't mean Alaskans are in the clear. A separate, nationwide injunction issued August 11 is still blocking the Postal Service from rolling out these new mail-ballot rules anywhere in the country, including here — for now. That's the piece the administration is going after next.
Here's why that matters so much for us specifically: Alaska depends on the mail more than almost any other state to run elections. Dozens of our communities — especially across rural and Bush Alaska — have no road access and rely on USPS to get ballots out and back. There's no simple "drive to the polling place" option in a lot of this state. And huge numbers of military voters will be impacted.
Any new federal barcode-tracking system, eligibility-list requirement, or processing delay at USPS isn't an abstract bureaucratic tweak for us — it's a direct risk to whether ballots reach voters in places like the Bush in time, and whether their votes get counted.
If that nationwide block falls the way this one just did, Alaska could see these changes take effect with very little runway before November — and very little say in the matter, since we weren't even part of the litigation shaping the outcome.
This is exactly what the Elections bill SB 64 was supposed to fix.
This year, the Legislature passed a bipartisan elections bill, SB 64, that would have put real protections in place for Alaska voters heading into this environment — free postage for absentee ballots so cost never keeps a ballot from going out, a ballot tracking system so voters could see their ballot move through the process, a 10-day cure period so a minor paperwork mistake doesn't throw out a valid vote, and a dedicated rural liaison to help villages that have had polls open late — or not open at all. Governor Dunleavy vetoed it, and the override attempt fell two votes short.
Had SB 64 been law, Alaska voters would already have a tracking system to see exactly where their ballot is in the mail — instead of just hoping it makes it through a Postal Service now caught up in a federal court fight. They'd have a cure process to fix a mistake instead of losing their vote to it. And rural communities would have a liaison working to prevent exactly the kind of election-day failures we've already seen. Instead, we're heading into a period of federal uncertainty over mail voting with fewer safeguards in place than we could have had.
Ironically, Governor Dunleavy vetoed that bill months ago, in large part because he said the Division of Elections would not have time to implement the ballot tracking changes. Hopefully he and our federal delegation will make these concerns known to the federal government so any potential changes that can’t be implemented do not go into effect until the next election.
This fight isn't over. More legal challenges are coming, and I'll keep watching this closely and keeping you updated on how it could affect Alaska voters.
