(The Center Square) – Washington state’s top elected officials issued strong reactions following a U.S. Supreme Court decision Monday that sided with the Trump administration to stay an injunction on mail-in voting regulations ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
The high court’s order allows federal rules regarding mail-in voting to proceed for now while legal challenges continue through the court system.
The White House called the ruling a major win.
“These are commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement to media outlets. “This Administration will continue to lawfully enact the agenda President Trump was elected on – which includes the safety and security of our elections.”
The decision sparked sharp criticism from Washington Democratic leaders, who said the regulations could disrupt election administration and disenfranchise voters in a state that relies heavily on vote-by-mail systems.
Governor Bob Ferguson expressed immediate opposition to the ruling, emphasizing on social media that the legal fight is far from over.
“While today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court is terrible, it’s only the beginning of the legal challenge. If these rules are allowed to stand, they will disenfranchise Washingtonians and lead to federal interference in our state elections,” Ferguson stated in a post.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, Washington Democrat, similarly criticized the decision, arguing that the federal government is overstepping its constitutional boundaries regarding state-run elections.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision gets the Trump Administration one step closer to implementing its voter suppression order and forcing states to hand over personal voter data to the federal government,” Cantwell said in a statement provided to KIRO 7 News Seattle. “This is wrong. The Constitution clearly says the States should administer elections. The federal government should not weaponize the US Postal Service to decide who will receive a mail-in ballot and whose vote will be counted. The Administration must not be allowed to take the right of Washingtonians to vote by mail or interfere with our free and fair elections.”
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs highlighted the administrative hurdles the decision places on state and local election workers just months before the general election. Hobbs noted that the Supreme Court’s ruling focused on procedural timing rather than the constitutionality of the executive action itself.
“The Office of the Secretary of State remains committed to defending Washington’s constitutional authority to administer our elections,” Hobbs said in a press release. “These actions are an unconstitutional intrusion into state-run elections, and we will continue to fight them.”
Hobbs added that implementing sudden changes so close to an election creates unnecessary hurdles.
“These last-minute requirements would place significant burdens on state and county election officials at a time when our resources are already strained,” Hobbs said. “Our focus should be on administering a secure, accurate, and accessible election for Washington voters, not implementing unnecessary federal requirements just weeks before ballots are mailed. We will continue to fight these unconstitutional actions to ensure that elections in Washington are free and fair.”
State Attorney General Nick Brown reinforced that the ruling is a temporary procedural hold on an injunction granted in June rather than an approval of the administration’s policies.
“A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court does not seem to recognize the grave threat the president’s actions pose for our democracy. There is nothing hypothetical about his intent to illegally suppress legitimate votes,” Brown said in a statement.
“Fortunately, today’s decision does not bless the substance of the president’s actions; it simply says states must wait slightly longer to challenge them. We stand ready to take action to protect the integrity of our elections and prevent this clearly unconstitutional overreach from taking effect. States control elections, not the president,” his statement concluded.
Brown was one of 23 state attorneys general to sue the Trump administration over mail-in voting changes.
As previously reported by The Center Square, the Washington attorney general’s office participated in a plot to plan litigation with other Democratic states against Trump, several months before the president was reelected.
More legal challenges to the president’s order are expected which could ultimately stop it from taking effect.