The Court said no. Mail ballots go out as usual. Trump’s USPS screen is dead.

The Supreme Court late Monday blocked the Trump administration’s plan to have the Postal Service screen who gets a mail ballot. Unsigned. One paragraph. The government is “unlikely to succeed on the merits.” Alito and Thomas dissented. Kavanaugh concurred: the Postal Service might have the power, but applying it this close to November would be arbitrary and capricious. The Politics desk files a loss for a president who has spent a year calling mail votes a fraud.

The rule would have made states send voter lists to USPS, which would then decide who received a ballot. A Boston judge had already stopped it. Voting is underway in some states. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber: now election offices can “get back to what we do best.” The Times/Siena poll this morning has Democrats with midterm momentum. The $5,000 dividend is still a speech.

The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits.

Eight weeks. Diesel printed another record. The Politics desk files Tuesday as it is: a one-paragraph order, a mail tray that stays open, and a president who did not get to pick who votes by post.