Supreme Court's mail voting ruling adds to 'unnecessary confusion,' Minn. secretary of state says

The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday didn’t rule on the legality of President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting mail-in ballots, but it “injects some unnecessary confusion into the process,” Minnesota secretary of state Steve Simon told PBS News.

Election Day is about 70 days away and Minnesota’s absentee voting, which includes by mail, begins Sept. 18. No election procedures have changed, so far, after the high court’s decision as litigation against the president’s order continues to play out in court.

Trump signed the order in March, which bars the U.S. Postal Service from delivering ballots to people who are not on federal lists of eligible voters and directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.

Simon said there’s “serious doubt” whether there’s enough time to implement these kinds of changes ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“Keep in mind, they're talking about a whole new architecture here,” he told White House correspondent Liz Landers. “They're talking about some database that Department of Homeland Security is going to create with the help of states. But it's really sort of a black box. We don't know what's inside it. We don't know what their methodology is going to be.”

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