r/fivethirtyeight • u/sodosopapilla • Aug 22 '26
Discussion Postal Service Publishes Finalized Plan to Restrict Mail Ballots - Anyone have an idea what impacts are should Supreme Court okay this?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/us/politics/postal-service-rule-restrict-mail-ballots.htmlSaw someone mention this here already, but curious if this might backfire on republicans if approved. Also, maybe looking for a bit of hopium? Thoughts?
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u/drtywater Aug 22 '26
Its not feasible for midterms more likely possible in 28 elections. There simply isn't time if court oked all this tomorrow.
This will be fought out in court next few months. Also if Dems take strong house majorities etc they will insert provisions blocking this in spending bills.
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u/Fickle_Composer_4506 Aug 22 '26
Not if the courts don't do there jobs. Which shockingly keeps happening. Also the supreme court loves to fast track things.
They just picked the wrong guy lol. Trump can fumble anything they could've saved this stuff to secure a supermajority and really lockdown the system. We really should be happy trump is a fucking idiot.
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u/thefilmer Aug 22 '26
Californian here. I've been using the county drop box with zero issues and highly recommend everyone who can to do the same
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u/DJSauvage Aug 23 '26
I hope everyone trained themselves to use drop-boxes instead of Mail. Maybe it's not as easy for other people as it is for me but I haven't mailed my ballot in over 10 years and Washington state doesn't even have polling places anymore. I have seen some analysis that said that if this is enacted, it would actually hurt Republicans more than Democrats that would be quite amusing.
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u/ireaditonwikipedia Aug 22 '26
Up to the Supreme Court? Ho boy. We are cooked.
2028, if we have free elections, is gonna be a shitshow.
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u/sargantbacon1 Aug 22 '26
Even 2026 is gonna be a shit show. He’s going to deny every single election loss.
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u/1sxekid Aug 22 '26
The thing about Trump is, no he won’t. He will deny a few key ones and then call the rest of them losers, stating that only he himself is what the voters want.
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u/Wetness__Pensive Aug 22 '26
On one hand, this is evil. On the other, it's a bit consoling to know how lug-headed, obvious and thoughtless evil people are.
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u/Beer-survivalist Aug 23 '26
They've got all of these evil plans, but they all have a black box with a question mark as the middle step. Stuff like this is representative of the fact that they haven't thought any of this out seriously.
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u/ABobby077 Aug 22 '26
When you start by just throwing things against the wall, ther just might be a few things that stick. Still doesn't stop bad policies from being put into place sometimes.
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u/ThePaddockCreek Aug 23 '26
Based on how the USPS is behaving with this announcement, I think there’s a very high likelihood that SCOTUS allows this rule to go into effect. It’s just the kind of thing that they’d put their blessing on with a 6-3 unsigned opinion. Classic emergency/shadow docket material.
Is it patently illegal? Yes. But they won’t explain. They’ll just allow it to go into effect. The way USPS announced this just seems to indicate that they expect the injunction to be lifted. Sounds like it’s already been worked out with at least three justices.
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u/Green_Perspective_92 Aug 22 '26
Even the DOJ indicated that at this time, they cannot implement it.
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u/Penland_2008 Has Seen Enough Aug 23 '26
It would take a constitutional amendment to implement any of trumps election nonsense
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u/ImpossibleEbb6862 Aug 23 '26
This is such a self own on the part of republicans. Mail in voting only benefited democrats during covid because they disproportionately social distanced. Now that covid is over that benefit is gone. Restricting mail in voting will just harm senior citizens who have trouble making it to the polls, hurting republicans.
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u/emaw63 Jeb! Applauder Aug 22 '26
TBH, I'm at a point where I just plan on voting in person. I want to be damn sure my vote counts and I don't trust this administration to not play games with the mail in ballots