Key points:

• The Supreme Court invalidated a lower court injunction against the Trump administration enacting mail-in voting rules

• Arizona was among the states that sued to stop the implementation of the directives

• Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the ruling changes nothing about Arizona’s mail-in voting system

Arizona state officials said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Monday to remove a procedural hurdle to President Donald Trump’s new mail-in voting rules changes nothing, even though it comes weeks before ballots are to be sent to voters.

The Supreme Court invalidated a lower court ruling Monday that placed an injunction on Trump’s proposed mail-in voting rules that would compel Arizona’s election administrators to hand over mail-in voters’ information.

According to the court’s unsigned order from the 6-3 conservative majority, a Massachusetts District Court judge incorrectly ruled in late June against a Trump executive order signed in March directing the U.S. Postal Service to develop new mail-in ballot rules. Under those rules, the Secretary of Homeland Security must compile a list of U.S. citizens above the age of 18 living in each state and send it to the states’ chief election officials. 

While the Supreme Court concluded that the order may not be lawful once carried out, “the Order itself does not harm the States, so the District Court lacked jurisdiction to bar the Government from trying to implement it.”

In a written statement, Attorney General Mayes characterized the ruling as a procedural, rather than substantive, decision and vowed to continue challenging the USPS rule.

“Make no mistake: this fight is far from over,” Mayes stated. “States run their own elections. Not the Postal Service. Not the President.”

Arizona’s early ballots will be mailed on Oct. 7, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

Arizona was among the 23 states that sued the Trump administration in April over the order.

In a filing joined by Mayes, the states urged the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court ruling, arguing that the proposed USPS rules would increase the likelihood of mistakes and amount to federal interference in state election procedures.

The justices disagreed, determining that the executive order only proposes rules rather than final policy. Therefore, it couldn’t harm the states suing the White House.

Votebeat reported Aug. 17 that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told federal election officials he didn’t trust them over concerns about interference in state election administration.

In a news release on Monday, Fontes emphasized that the ruling does not settle the issue.

“The most important thing for Arizona voters to know today is simple: nothing has changed,” Fontes said.

Further obstacles remain for the Trump administration to implement new rules for USPS and mail-in voting.

The same Massachusetts federal judge ruled against implementing the executive order nationwide in August, not just in the states that sued the Trump administration. Monday’s Supreme Court ruling does not impact that injunction.

The executive order must also undergo the full rulemaking process before it becomes official policy. As the Supreme Court noted, future lawsuits may be more successful once the order’s directives are actually implemented.