This week, ballots for November’s midterm elections are being sent to Georgians living overseas, unaffected by a White House executive order to screen mail in ballots that was shut down by the Supreme Court.
The Trump administration had previously ordered the United States Postal Service to overhaul how Americans receive mail ballots, but on Monday, the Supreme Court blocked the effort by the White House.
In Georgia, that ruling fell one day before ballots could be sent to voters living abroad under the Uniformed and Overseas Voting Act.
The law makes them legally entitled to be sent absentee ballots 45 days before an election.
David Becker, the founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the administration’s changes also came far too late to be implemented.
“It is simply way too late to implement any rule like this in advance of the election,” he said. “Election officials could not implement it — even the Postal Service could not implement it.”
The Supreme Court majority wrote that the rule would have likely lost in court, so Becker doesn’t see it returning in 2028.
Ethan Compton is the election supervisor for South Georgia’s Irwin County, and in a statement he welcomed the court’s ruling but noted he’d be open to proper policy in the future.
“Of course I’m relieved that the battle over absentee voting is over for now, but I am aware that this will be back in one way or another for 2028,” he wrote.
“National level programs take considerable time for states to comply with, and RealID is a perfect example of how a ‘small’ change on a national scale can take over 20 years to implement and even then, the final deadlines caused some brief panic,” Compton wrote.
“People across the political spectrum want more transparency and documented custody controls for how absentee by mail ballots move through USPS from the elections office to the voter and back again,” he continued. “If a system was developed with the patience in mind of knowing it will take considerable time to implement, and significant involvement from elections officials across the nation to design in partnership with USPS, this issue wouldn’t be as controversial as it is today.”
“I’d like to be optimistic and hope that this can drive some careful and constructive improvements in the handling and tracking of ballots by USPS since this rushed and destructive attempt to force that change has failed,” Compton said.
Sample ballots for the midterms will be available starting Saturday.
