Jackson rips into Supreme Court colleagues' 'serious legal error' on Trump mail-in voting order

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply rebuked her colleagues' decision allowing the Trump administration to move forward with parts of its mail-voting executive order, warning that the ruling could create election chaos and leave states trapped between filing legal challenges too early or too late.

"This ruling violates well-established precedents concerning this Court’s equitable discretion and needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections," the Court's junior liberal justice wrote in a 23-page dissent Monday.

Jackson said the decision "lets another shoe drop in the Kafkaesque nightmare that our precedents have been steadily creating for certain plaintiffs who seek to bring election-related challenges." The court granted the Trump administration’s request to stay a lower-court injunction that had blocked implementation of portions of President Donald Trump’s March executive order in 23 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia.

TRUMP SCORES SUPREME COURT WIN ON MAIL-IN VOTING RESTRICTIONS BEFORE MIDTERMS The unsigned majority opinion did not decide whether the executive order itself is lawful.

Instead, the court concluded that the administration was likely to prevail on its argument that the states’ challenge was premature because they had not yet suffered a sufficiently concrete injury.

"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," the majority wrote.

"On that score, time will tell." Jackson took aim at that reasoning, arguing that the states were already confronting election-planning costs, threats of prosecution and uncertainty over possible changes to mail-ballot procedures.

JACKSON PUBLICLY AIRS GRIEVANCES WITH CONSERVATIVE COLLEAGUES OVER TRUMP-ERA RULINGS She accused the majority of embracing what she called a "Catch-Me-If-You-Can approach" that could make it difficult for states to determine when an election-related challenge is ripe for judicial review.

The court has previously warned against courts changing election rules too close to Election Day.

Jackson argued Monday’s decision creates the opposite problem by telling states that some challenges can also come too early.

"The Court does a disservice to all concerned by distorting Article III standing and ripeness principles to issue a ruling that contributes to pre-election chaos instead of quashing it," she wrote.

Jackson also accused the majority of a "lack of situational awareness," arguing that the administration was seeking emergency relief while simultaneously maintaining that the consequences of the executive order remained uncertain.