This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Postal Service to overhaul mail voting in a way that threatens to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans in the upcoming election. 

Federal courts have repeatedly issued orders blocking this election interference. But the Supreme Court has swooped in to lift those court orders, and Trump remains undeterred. This week, an anonymous federal official filed a whistleblower disclosure revealing that the U.S. Postal Service is “poised to derail the midterm elections,” and is working “at a breakneck speed” to implement Trump’s directive, regardless of whether any court orders were in place.

These revelations are closely connected to the Supreme Court’s strategy for facilitating Trump’s lawbreaking, in the November elections and beyond. The Republican justices regularly delay substantive review of the administration’s actions, which confines lower courts to procedural questions and frees the administration to act lawlessly in the meanwhile. When Trump can count on the Court to forestall legal review as long as possible—and to override unfavorable determinations when they do occur—he has every incentive to just keep breaking the law.

The current mail ballot controversy arises out of Trump’s March 2026 executive order, which purports to assign the federal government a major role in election administration. The order instructs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of eligible voters........

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