Too Big To Ignore: Will of the People Weekly

Week of August 31, 2026

The House is back in session this week, but the real fight over our ballots is happening in the courts. Trump’s anti-voter mail-ballot order is currently frozen, after a tumultuous back-and-forth last week that saw the Supreme Court hand Trump a narrow win and a district court impose a temporary block. On Thursday, a judge will hear arguments on whether the rules will stay that way through November. Meanwhile in the states, one of Texas’ largest counties votes on Tuesday whether to close nearly 100 polling places, and North Carolina starts mailing ballots Friday. What happens next is up to us, not them. When all of us show up, the will of the people wins. Try and stop us.

In the Administration

• Trump’s anti-voter mail-ballot rule is on hold, for now. His Postal Service published the rule on Wednesday and a federal judge froze it the next night, but it stays on the books while he appeals. It would require states to send their ballot envelopes to Washington for approval and register every voter through a federal portal before ballots go out, letting USPS refuse delivery anywhere a state falls short.
• Trump hired an election denier at Homeland Security who wrote the letter threatening state election officials. Democracy Docket reported Friday that Karen DiSalvo, who spent years pushing claims that American elections are stolen, now holds a senior post at DHS and personally drafted the department’s letter warning states they will lose federal security funding unless they adopt Trump’s preferred voting rules. She is a close associate of Heather Honey, the Pennsylvania activist the same office hired last year.
• Trump’s poll watchers were aggressive enough that a Republican governor called in his attorney general. After Justice Department monitors turned up unannounced at a Cheyenne polling place during Wyoming’s August primary, asking about vote tabulators, trying to speak with voters and demanding access to voting equipment, Gov. Mark Gordon called their conduct aggressive and irregular and referred them to the state attorney general. Trump plans to deploy 1,000 monitors nationwide in November.

In the Courts

• Trump v. California (U.S. Supreme Court)
  • Last week, the Supreme Court lifted an order blocking Trump’s mail-voting directive across 23 states, holding only that the states sued before the agencies finished writing their rules. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kagan, wrote that the decision merely postpones the question, while Justice Jackson warned it would inject chaos into the midterms.
• State of California et al. v. United States Postal Service et al. (U.S. District Court, Massachusetts)
  • In response to the Trump v. California SCOTUS ruling, 24 states and D.C. sued, arguing that only Congress can give the Postal Service authority over mail ballots. On Thursday night, a federal judge froze Trump’s mail-ballot rule for 14 days, finding the agency likely had no power to issue it and noting that the record still contains no evidence of fraudulent mail voting. Trump appealed the next morning, and the judge will hear arguments on a longer block this Thursday.

In Congress

• The House is back in session for a week. Members are returning for a single week before leaving again for Labor Day. The Senate has not been in town at all, holding only pro forma sessions in which one senator gavels in, conducts no business and gavels out, until legislative work resumes September 14.

In the States

North Carolina

• Although a federal judge has blocked Trump’s mail-ballot rule, North Carolina submitted its ballot envelopes to the Postal Service for federal approval on Thursday, becoming the first state in the country to comply with Trump’s mail-ballot rule. The state mails its first ballots this Friday.

Texas

• In Texas’ third-largest county, Tarrant County, commissioners are set to vote on a plan on Tuesday that would eliminate 92 Election Day voting sites.
• New reporting shows that more than 1.2 million Texans, or roughly 6% of the state’s voters, have now had their voter registrations suspended by county elections officials ahead of the midterm elections.

Colorado

• Over the weekend, an anti-voter Colorado ballot initiative that would impose new requirements on mail-ballot voters qualified for the November ballot.

Upcoming Elections & Deadlines

Tuesday, September 1

• Massachusetts primary