2026-09-03T20:19:04.431Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
美国总统唐纳德·特朗普政府周四请求最高法院赋予美国邮政总局扣留邮寄选票递送的广泛权力，在11月中期选举不到两个月之际，将这场关乎选举的激烈对抗摆上了最高法院。
这项跳过仍在审理该案的下级法院的紧急上诉，是对总统今年3月签署的行政令长达数月的法律斗争的顶点。该行政令赋予联邦机构前所未有的选举参与权。选民维权团体以及由23个民主党领导的州组成的联盟在联邦法院对该行政令提出质疑，称总统和邮政总局都无权决定哪些邮寄选票能够送达选民手中。
随着中期选举临近，首批选票本周已开始邮寄，拥有6名保守派大法官、3名自由派大法官的最高法院将面临巨大压力，需要以异常快速的时间表审理此案。司法部请求最高法院立即介入，下达短期命令，允许邮政总局实施新规定。
政府将其规则描述为“仅涉及适度的信封设计和收件人信息要求”。在整个上诉过程中，政府将其诉求定性为更多关乎邮件监管权，而非选举事务。
“因此，这项规则显然没有接管各州的选举管理工作，”政府在向最高法院的陈述中写道，“它只是对某些与选举相关的邮件提出了合理的准备要求。”
大法官们上月曾就该问题进行过审议，当时支持了特朗普政府的立场。此后，美国邮政总局详细说明了其执行特朗普行政令的具体方案。众多选举官员警告称，此时推翻他们的邮寄选票系统已经为时过晚。一名举报人发布的报告称，美国邮政总局正急于完成一项复杂计划，可能导致数百万美国人被剥夺选举权。
“美国邮政总局的邮寄选票规则是在选举前夕试图颠覆邮寄投票的违宪企图，”美国公民自由联盟投票权项目主任索菲亚·林·莱金说道，该项目是代表选民维权团体的法律团队的一部分。“地区法院在通过一项将在数日内到期的命令决定是否给予初步救济前，已暂时阻止了该规则的关键条款生效。但特朗普政府还是径直向最高法院提起上诉。这里唯一的紧急状况，正是政府自己制造的。”
最高法院要求各方在周二上午前提交该案的答辩状，这一迹象表明，法院不太可能立即对政府的请求作出裁决。
特朗普政府若想让最高法院仔细审查美国邮政总局的这项规定，需要先克服一项程序障碍。下级法院通过临时禁令阻止了美国邮政总局的规则实施，这类禁令通常不可上诉。不过最高法院过去也曾允许此类上诉，政府的首席上诉律师、司法部副部长D.约翰·索尔表示，本案应当如此。
特朗普以及支持他的数个共和党州将这项行政令描述为对邮政规则的一系列微小调整，目的是确保选举更加安全。周四的上诉中，政府呼应特朗普长期以来毫无根据的“广泛存在选民欺诈”的说法，强调这些修改对防止欺诈至关重要。
司法部在文件中写道，如果不介入，下级法院的禁令将“部分抵消邮政总局为防范利用联邦邮件实施选民欺诈所做的努力——这是一种特别恶劣的欺诈行为，会削弱合法选民的选票权重”。
但批评人士称，这项行政令是对各州管理的邮寄选票系统的权力攫取。特朗普曾多次毫无根据地指责邮寄选票导致他在2020年大选中输给前总统乔·拜登。
根据该规定，各州必须通过在线门户网站向美国邮政总局提交合格邮寄选民名单，才能通过邮件寄送选票。如果选民姓名未出现在该名单上，美国邮政总局将拒绝为其递送选票。美国邮政总局的规则还要求选举邮件信封为每位选民配备唯一的条形码。各州担忧，在选举前数周全面更换邮寄选票系统可能会导致选票无法送达选民的系统性故障。
北卡罗来纳州将于周五开始邮寄选票。
政府在上诉中反复强调这一点，试图唤起最高法院的紧迫感。它警告称，随着下级法院继续审理此案，越来越多的州将开始寄送今年选举的选票。
这项紧急上诉要求最高法院解决多年来提交给它的最重要的选举相关问题之一。上个月，意见分歧的法院允许政府继续推进其行政令的实施，但此举基于技术层面的理由，几乎无法反映保守派多数大法官对特朗普这项核心行政令合法性的看法。最高法院的三名自由派大法官对该决定持反对意见。
几天后，波士顿的一家联邦法院暂时阻止政府执行该计划。
挑战该行政令的民主党州官员和选民维权团体指出，宪法将选举管理权赋予各州，而非总统，他们还认为国会并未赋予美国邮政总局监管各州邮寄选票项目的权力。但司法部反驳称，美国邮政总局拥有修改邮件协议的广泛权力，并援引了该局过去曾这样做的两个例子：递送骨灰和模拟爆炸物，比如dummy grenades（假手榴弹）。
近日的举报人报告指控，美国邮政总局准备在整批选票中只要出现一个信封信息与门户网站内信息不符的情况，就拒收整批选票——在某些辖区，这将导致数万张选票延迟寄出。
本文已更新补充更多信息。
Trump asks Supreme Court to OK sweeping changes for mail ballots
2026-09-03T20:19:04.431Z / CNN
President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to give the US Postal Service sweeping power to withhold delivery of mail ballots, setting up an extraordinary showdown over voting at the high court less than two months before the November midterm election.
The emergency appeal, which leapfrogged lower courts still considering the case, is the culmination of a monthslong legal fight over an executive order the president signed in March that gave federal agencies an unprecedented role in elections. Voter advocacy groups and a coalition of 23 Democratic-led states challenged that order in federal court, arguing that neither the president nor the post office should have a role in choosing which mail ballots reach voters.
With the midterm elections nearing, and the first ballots entering the mail this week, the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court will be under enormous pressure to decide the case on an unusually speedy timeline. The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to step in immediately with a short-term order that would allow the Postal Service to implement its new regulations.
The administration described its rules as “only modest envelope-design and addressee-information requirements.” Throughout its appeal, the administration framed its effort as having more to do with its power to regulate the mail than anything to do with elections.
“The rule thus plainly does not seize control of states’ administration of elections,” the administration told the high court. “It simply imposes reasonable preparation requirements for certain election-related mail.”
Since the justices last reviewed the issue in August — siding with the Trump administration— USPS has provided more detail about how it intends to implement Trump’s order. Many election officials have warned that it’s already too late to upend their mail ballot systems. And a whistleblower report asserted that the USPS is rushing to complete a complicated plan that could potentially disenfranchise millions of Americans.
“USPS’s mail ballot rule is an unconstitutional attempt to upend mail voting on the eve of an election,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, part of the legal team representing the voting rights groups. “The district court temporarily blocked the rule’s key provision while it decides the request for preliminary relief through an order set to expire within days. Yet President Trump’s administration is running to the Supreme Court anyway. The only emergency here is the one the administration created.”
The court requested a response in the case by Tuesday morning, a sign that it is unlikely to decide the administration’s request immediately.
The Trump administration will need to clear a procedural hurdle before it can get the court to look at the USPS regulation closely. A lower court had blocked the USPS rule with a temporary order that is not normally appealable. However, the high court has sometimes allowed such appeals in the past, and Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the top appellate attorney for the administration, said it should do so in this case.
Trump, and several Republican states that support him, have framed the executive order as a minimal series of changes in postal rules to ensure a more secure election. In its appeal Thursday, the administration leaned into the idea that the changes are necessary to prevent fraud, echoing the president’s long stated false assertions of widespread voter fraud.
Without intervention, the Justice Department wrote, the lower court order blocking the administration “partially nullifies the Postal Service’s efforts to address the risk that the federal mails will be used to perpetrate voter fraud — a particularly pernicious species of fraud that dilutes the votes of lawful voters.”
But critics describe the order as a power grab over state-run mail ballots, which the president has repeatedly and baselessly blamed for his loss to former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Under the regulations, states must submit lists of their eligible mail voters to USPS via an online portal in order to send ballots through the mail. If a name doesn’t appear on that list, the Postal Service would decline to deliver a mail ballot to them. The USPS rule would also require that election mail envelopes carry unique bar codes for each voter. States fear that adopting an entirely new mail ballot system weeks before the election could lead to systemic breakdowns in ballots reaching voters.
North Carolina is set to begin sending out its mail ballots on Friday.
It was a point the administration repeatedly stressed in its appeal as it attempted to arouse a sense of urgency from the court. It warned that as lower courts continued to work on the case, more and more states would begin sending ballots for this year’s election.
The emergency appeal requires the Supreme Court to resolve one of the most significant election-related questions it has been asked to take up in years. Last month, a divided court allowed the administration to continue working to implement its executive order, though it did so on technical grounds that offered little insight into how the conservative majority views the legality of Trump’s underlying order. The court’s three liberal justices dissented from that decision.
Days later, a federal court in Boston temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out the plan.
Democratic state officials and voting rights groups challenging the order note that the Constitution gives the power to run elections to the states, not the president, and they argue that Congress has given USPS no authority to police state mail ballot programs. But the Justice Department has countered that USPS has broad authority to change protocols for the mail. It has called attention to two examples where it has done so in the past: the delivery of cremated remains and replica explosives, such as dummy grenades.
The recent whistleblower report alleged that the agency was preparing to reject entire batches of ballots — which in some jurisdictions would delay the sending of tens of thousands ballots — if USPS found that just a single envelope in the batch did not align with the information within the portal.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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