2026-09-16T16:00:29.960Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/politics/supreme-court-mail-voting-democrats
针对美国最高法院叫停唐纳德·特朗普总统在2026年中期选举中大幅限制邮寄选票的举措，各方反应不出所料。
总体而言，选民更倾向于使用邮寄选票的民主党人对该裁决表示欢迎，而特朗普则猛烈抨击了这一裁决——他毫不掩饰地认为自己提议的选举改革有助于共和党。
但即便会造成损害，这些限制举措对民主党造成的伤害也未必会比对共和党更严重。
事实上，最高法院的这场胜利或许更多是为了维护民主，而非助力民主党。
近日一名美国邮政署 whistleblower（举报人）警告称，这套用于验证邮寄选票的全面新系统极易出现差错，可能导致大规模选民被剥夺投票资格。这似乎本应损害民主党利益。
尽管民主党人邮寄投票的比例更高，但多项估算显示，2020年至2024年间，两党之间的差距有所缩小。皮尤研究中心发现，在2020年新冠疫情期间邮寄投票普及的情况下，58%的已确认投票的民主党选民表示他们通过邮寄方式投票，而共和党选民的这一比例仅为32%。到2024年，这一数字分别降至43%和25%。
但对于那些住得离投票站较远的老年和农村选民而言，邮寄投票选项 arguably（ arguably此处意为“ arguably可以说，按理来说”）更为重要，而这些群体的共和党倾向往往高于民主党。
本周末公布的一项哥伦比亚广播公司新闻民调显示，可能选民的邮寄及缺席投票意向与2024年大选颇为相似：38%的民主党人计划通过该方式投票，而共和党人的这一比例为22%。
但民主党人表示打算通过投票箱而非邮政服务寄回邮寄或缺席选票的比例（40%）远高于共和党人（15%）。
总体而言，该民调发现约五分之一的民主党人计划通过邮寄服务以邮寄或缺席投票方式投票，这一比例仅比共和党人略高一点。
长期以来一直尖锐批评特朗普干预美国选举及声称存在大规模选举舞弊行为的共和党资深选举律师本·金斯伯格曾表示，总统修改邮寄投票规则的计划实际上可能会适得其反，损害共和党利益。
金斯伯格称，这不仅因为共和党选民年龄更大、更多居住在农村地区，还因为在没有特朗普参选的选举中，共和党选民的投票率往往会低得多。
“多亏了唐纳德·特朗普，共和党内部出现了更多低投票倾向选民，”金斯伯格上月在接受美国有线电视新闻网“与凯特兰·柯林斯连线”节目采访时表示。“各州的共和党竞选团队都知道，为共和党基本盘设置这类投票障碍，会降低共和党选民的投票率。”
金斯伯格将其称为“一项被包裹在高调政策外衣下的存在缺陷的政治策略”。
民调还显示，与民主党人相比，共和党选民对2026年中期选举的投票热情明显更低。
换言之，仅看哪个党派的选民更倾向于邮寄投票过于简单化。要真正评估特朗普的改革举措以及阻止这些举措的裁决的影响，你必须关注哪些人可能会因此被劝阻投票，或者因限制措施而无法寄回选票。
美国邮政署的这名举报人声称，如果州选举官员提交的选民名单与他们寄出的邮寄选票存在哪怕一处不符，数万张选票的整批邮件都可能被搁置。
如果邮寄给选民的选票因这种潜在的大规模混乱而被搁置，那么哪个党派的选民更有可能通过其他途径投票，或者根本不投票，就会产生不同的影响。
不过，无论这项改革最终对哪个党派的选民造成的伤害更大，这些仓促出台的限制措施无疑有很多可能引发混乱，或威胁自由公平选举的隐患。
毕竟，特朗普已经表明，他为了获胜不惜一切代价，还经常试图干预选举的运作方式。
即便这并非本届政府的本意，在选举临近的最后阶段批准这些改革可能会打开潘多拉的盒子。特朗普任命的大法官布雷特·卡瓦诺在协同意见中表示，他认为这些规则修改本身可能是合法的，但选举官员“没有足够的时间合理落实这些规则”。
这或许可以解释为什么不仅仅是民主党人对这些修改提出了质疑，一些共和党州务卿也加入了反对行列。
Why the Supreme Court’s rebuke of Trump might help democracy more than Democrats
2026-09-16T16:00:29.960Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/politics/supreme-court-mail-voting-democrats
The reactions to the US Supreme Court putting an end to President Donald Trump’s efforts to significantly restrict mail ballots in the 2026 midterm elections were about what you’d expect.
It was largely Democrats, whose voters tend to avail themselves of mail voting more than Republicans do, who cheered the ruling. Trump, who has made no secret that he views his proposed election changes as helping Republicans, assailed it.
But it’s not totally clear that the restrictions would have harmed Democrats much, if at all, more than Republicans.
Indeed, the win in the Supreme Court ruling might be more for democracy than for Democrats.
A Postal Service whistleblower recently warned that the sweeping new system for verifying mail ballots was prone to errors and could lead to mass disenfranchisement of votes. And that would seem primed to hurt Democrats.
But while Democrats vote by mail more, multiple estimates show that gap narrowed somewhat between 2020 and 2024. Amid expanded mail voting during the Covid pandemic in 2020, the Pew Research Center found that 58% of validated voters who voted Democratic said they voted by mail, while just 32% of Republican voters did. By 2024, the numbers were 43% for Democratic voters and 25% for Republican ones.
But the option is arguably more important for older and rural voters who live further from polling places, and those people tend to be more Republican than Democratic.
A CBS News poll among likely voters released this weekend showed mail and absentee ballot intentions looked a lot like the 2024 election, with 38% of Democrats planning to vote that way, compared to 22% of Republicans.
But Democrats were much more likely to say they intended to return their mail or absentee ballots through drop boxes rather than the mail service (40% of them) than Republicans were (15%).
All told, the poll found around 1in 5 Democrats planned to vote by mail or absentee and return their ballot through the mail service — only a little more than Republicans.
Longtime Republican elections lawyer Ben Ginsberg, who has sharply criticized Trump’s efforts to meddle in US elections and his claims of widespread fraud, has suggested the president’s plans to change mail voting might actually have backfired on Republicans.
Ginsberg said that was not just because GOP voters are older and more rural, but also because they’re disproportionately less likely to turn out to vote in elections that don’t feature Trump on the ballot.
“Thanks to Donald Trump, there are many more low-propensity voters in the Republican Party,” Ginsberg said on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” last month. “And Republican operatives in the states know that putting up those barriers to that part of the Republican base makes Republican turnout less likely.”
Ginsberg called it a “flawed political strategy wrapped in a rather vocally charged policy.”
Polls have also shown that Republican voters are significantly less enthusiastic about voting in the 2026 midterms than Democrats.
In other words, it’s too simple to just look at which side votes by mail more. To really gauge the impact of Trump’s changes and the ruling blocking them, you have to look at who might be dissuaded from voting at all or not have a ballot returned because of the restrictions.
The USPS whistleblower claimed that if there was just one discrepancy between voter lists submitted by state elections officials and the mail ballots they send out, entire batches of tens of thousands of ballots could be held up.
If mail ballots being sent to voters were held up because of that potential mass disruption, it would matter which party’s voters are more likely to use other avenues to vote or might not vote at all.
Regardless of whose voters the change might ultimately have hurt more, though, there were certainly plenty of ways the rushed restrictions could have created a debacle or threatened free and fair elections.
Trump, after all, has shown he’s plenty willing to do whatever it takes to win and has frequently flirted with meddling in how elections are run.
And even if that wasn’t the administration’s intention, allowing the changes so late in the game could have opened up a Pandora’s box. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, said in his concurrence that he was open to the rule changes being legal, but that election officials did “not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule.”
All of which might help explain why it wasn’t only Democrats who challenged the changes; so too did some Republican secretaries of state.
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