WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday handed an initial win to the Trump administration in its effort to implement an executive order aimed at limiting who can receive mail-in ballots ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

At issue are provisions that seek to create a federal list of eligible voters and order the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to those people.

The justices, divided 6-3 on ideological lines with conservatives in the majority, lifted an injunction imposed by a Massachusetts-based judge in June that prevented key aspects of the executive order from being put into effect this year in California and 22 other states that had challenged it.

The court also granted a similar application filed by Alabama and 11 other states.

U.S. Postal Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. Erin Scott / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

Parts of the same executive order are currently blocked nationwide because of a later ruling issued by the same judge in a different case, but the Supreme Court decision is likely to apply to that ruling too.

That means that the administration may, at least in the short term, be able to implement the executive order, but the legal battle is far from over.

“This decision is a painful setback, but it will not be the final word,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who was among those who challenged the proposal, said in a statement.

President Donald Trump has frequently railed against the widespread use of mail-in ballots as part of his broader complaints, offered without evidence, that the election system is plagued with fraud.

His efforts to encourage Congress to pass his SAVE America Act legislation that would impose new voting restrictions nationwide, including proof of citizenship to register to vote and voter ID, have so far failed.

Election workers process mail-in ballots at San Francisco County's election operations facility at City Hall in San Francisco in June. David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

The Supreme Court decision is provisional, focusing only on the argument that U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani acted prematurely in preventing the provisions from being implemented in the 23 states before federal agencies had even drawn up plans for how to implement the executive order.

“The court’s disposition of this application does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell,” the court said in a the unsigned ruling.

The decision leaves the door open to judges intervening at a later date, especially as regards any restrictions imposed for the coming midterm elections. On Aug. 21, while the case was pending, the Postal Service issued its final regulation that would enforce parts of the executive order.

The decision saw the three liberal justices on the conservative-majority court in dissent.

“Today’s decision does not address whether the President’s attempts to interfere with states’ administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful. Nor does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to implement the President’s directives. Instead, today’s decision merely postpones adjudication of those challenges,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.

In a separate dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the majority of “taking its eye off the ball” by focusing on a technical legal argument instead of what she views as the larger goal of the Trump administration: “to secure our imprimatur for its effort to foment chaos ahead of the November elections.”

The Trump administration told the Supreme Court the new regulations did not go as far as the executive order anticipated, saying the Postal Service “will not refuse to transmit ballots” even if senders are not included on a state list of registered voters.

The Supreme Court decision is in line with one in a related case by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that rejected a separate attempt by Democrats to block the executive order.

Lower courts declined to put the Massachusetts ruling on hold, leading the administration to turn to the Supreme Court.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the filing that it was premature for courts to rule on the issue, as neither the Postal Service nor other agencies have determined how they will implement the executive order. It would be a tall order for the chronically underfunded Postal Service, with just months to go before Election Day.