The Supreme Court just revived Trump’s attempt to sabotage the 2026 election

President Donald Trump greats Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett as he arrives for the State of the Union address on February 24, 2026. | Win McNamee/Getty Images In March, President Donald Trump issued a blatantly illegal executive order claiming that he had the power to unilaterally rewrite US election law.

The order threatens prosecutions against state officials who allow certain people to vote, and it also requires states to include several federally mandated design elements in the envelopes that they use to mail ballots to voters.

On Monday, the Supreme Court’s Republican majority allowed that order to go into effect.

All three of the Court’s Democrats dissented.

Yet while the Court’s new decision in Trump v.

California is troubling, it’s not necessarily a sign that the justices will permit Trump’s illegal order to take full effect.

The Court’s actual holding in California is that two lower federal courts moved too quickly when they blocked the executive order.

But California does not opine on whether the order is actually legal.

The Supreme Court’s decision reinstates Trump’s order for now, but there are several active cases challenging this order in the lower courts.

So it is likely that a judge will issue a new decision blocking the executive order again very soon.

Still, the Court’s decision to reinstate this order, even temporarily, is likely to confuse state election officials who are racing to prepare for an upcoming election.

And the provision threatening prosecutions might deter these officials from doing their jobs until that provision is blocked by another court.

The Court is divided on whether Trump’s threat targeting state elections officials is actually a threat The case concerns two sections of Trump’s March order , one of which threatens state election officials with prosecution if they allow the wrong people to vote, and the other which appears to be an attempt to sabotage voting by mail during the 2026 midterms.