Republicans and Donald Trump will do ANYTHING to cheat in the midterm elections (99 days from today!). Their latest dirty trick is to try to have the Supreme Court allow them to limit mail-in voting through the secretive "shadow docket."
For those unaware, the Shadow Docket is a fast-track way to have an emergency ruled on without hearings. It handles "urgent" requests, like stays of execution, emergency injunctions and administrative stays. There are no oral arguments (ie, the other side doesn't get to present); cases are decided literally behind closed doors without public hearings. The justices review short written arguments, and often the decision is made in a brief and unsigned ruling.
It is a DIRTY way of trying to squeeze something by, so of course Donald Trump is doing it in another attempt to put his fat little thumb on the scale for the November midterms.
The Washington Post is reporting that the Trump Administration asked the Supreme Court to give its blessing to a completely crazy executive order to place "major new restrictions" on mail-in ballots prior to the midterm elections.
Just last week a Massachusetts appeals court kept in place a block on the order, stating that it would “sow confusion” and “threaten disenfranchisement of many eligible voters.”
The Trump administration wants the Supreme Court to allow it to continue to formulate its plan to restrict mail-in voting, claiming that the courts blocked it before the plan was fully formed.
Democracy Docket reports that Solicitor General John Sauer asked the Supreme Court "to allow USPS and other federal agencies to carry out Trump’s order while litigation against it continues."
He stated:
“The court’s incursion on the government’s authority imposes irreparable harm on the government by impeding the President’s efforts to secure election integrity—and doing so in a manner that will be effectively unreviewable as to the November election even if the government prevails on appeal."
In other words: please let us cheat.
In a normal world, I would not be worried about the Supreme Court entertaining something so insane. But in 2026, with this insanely corrupt Supreme Court, it is absolutely realistic to predict that they will find some reason (or no reason at all) to side with Donald Trump. Heck, they may put out a one-sentence order, "It is ordered," with no signature at all.
99 days.
