Democratic leaders and a " pro-voter " coalition on Tuesday announced separate actions to combat President Donald Trump's attack on voting by mail after the US Supreme Court's right-wing majority delivered a " painful setback " for critics…
Page A8From§Eachthe matinee edition — 2 September 2026
Alabama AG calls mail-ballot order 'about securing elections'; it needed Supreme Court to clear a federal injunction first.
As it ran on the front
I had it here somewhere — hold on. I write things down when I hear them, on whatever's close, and half the time what's close is the back of a hardware store receipt, so it takes me a minute. Here. September second. Alabama's Attorney General, Steve Marshall, on the mail-ballot order out of Washington. "This is about securing elections," he says. I've got it underlined twice. I don't know why I do that, my wife says I don't need to, but there it is.
I've got a padlock on the garage door. Cheap one, three coats of rust on it already, the kind you buy on sale and forget you own. I call that door secured. My neighbor calls it secured. Nobody's come by to test it. But if the fire marshal shows up one day and cuts that lock off because he's got a paper saying there might be a problem behind that door — was it secured, or was it just shut?…
…(cont) Because I had some other pages, from before, and I want to read those back too, if you'll give me a second.
Back in March, the President signs the executive order this whole thing comes from — the one about mail ballots, voter rolls, the works. Groups sue. They say it's unconstitutional. A federal judge, out of Massachusetts, agrees enough to put an injunction on it. That's a court telling the government: not yet.
Then, August twenty-fifth — I've got the date on this one — the Supreme Court's majority steps in and clears the way for the order anyway. The people who brought the case call that a "painful setback." Their words, not mine, I just copy down what's said.
The very next day, the twenty-sixth, that same Massachusetts judge lifts her own injunction. Unblocks it. And that same day — same twenty-four hours — the coalition fighting the case turns around and goes after the part of the order that runs through the Postal Service, and they call that part "blatantly unconstitutional." Not "maybe." Not "we have concerns." Blatantly.
So in the space of two days I've got: an order that was blocked, an order that gets unblocked because the Supreme Court steps in, and a group calling one piece of that same order unconstitutional out loud, on the record, in the same week the block comes off.
And today the Attorney General stands up and calls the whole arrangement "about securing elections." Not about the injunction. Not about the Supreme Court having to get involved. Not about the coalition's word for it. Securing.
I keep going back to the padlock. If you need the Supreme Court to keep your lock from being cut off, is that the same kind of secure as a rusty padlock nobody's tested? Or is that a different word wearing the same coat?
I was closing the notebook, I really was — but hold on, before you go, because I almost skipped the last page, and it's dated today too. Democrats are suing, right now, this week, to block the order again. Not the old lawsuit. A new one. So the thing the Attorney General is calling settled — the thing that already needed a Supreme Court rescue once just to stay standing — that's back in front of a judge. Again.
So I guess what I wrote down, and what I'd ask, is this: when a man says a thing is about securing elections, and there's a fresh lawsuit sitting on a docket somewhere tonight trying to take it back down — which one of those two is actually finished?
“They call it "securing" when it's their own executive order that couldn't survive a single lower court without the Supreme Court stepping in to save it. Read closely: the same week the block came off, the people fighting it called the mail piece "blatantly unconstitutional" out loud, and there's a brand new lawsuit filed to shut it down again. This isn't security, it's whack-a-mole with your ballot, and this round of it costs money nobody's sending your way.”
“This is straightforward — clean voter rolls, election integrity, states verifying who's eligible, nothing radical about it. Sure, a judge blocked it and it took the Supreme Court to clear it again, but courts disagree sometimes, that's not proof of anything. And "blatantly unconstitutional" — that's just what the other side calls it, it's not like a court actually ruled that. Did a court rule that? Let me get back to you on that.”
The receipts
The battle over President Donald Trump's attack on voting by mail continued on Wednesday, as a federal judge in Massachusetts lifted her injunction on the Republican's March executive order and the coalition behind that case took action…
Steve Marshall says Democratic AGs are blocking voter roll audits to obstruct Trump's election integrity executive order ahead of the midterms.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.