More than 2 million San Diego County voters will receive mail-in ballots the week of Oct. 5 under the same rules guiding them for years after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a new Postal Service rule that would have dramatically overhauled the November election.
The rule would have let the U.S. Postal Service refuse to mail local ballots unless the envelope designs adhered to new federal requirements and voter data was uploaded to a federal database. Many election officials nationwide had said those changes were too challenging to implement on such short notice.
President Donald Trump has pushed for voting reforms while making unfounded claims about voter fraud despite substantial evidence that it is rare.
Trump has directed federal agencies to require proof of citizenship on a national mail voter-registration form and tried to stop states from counting mail ballots received after Election Day.
The Justice Department has sued 30 states to force them to turn over complete voter-registration files so they can be run through a Department of Homeland Security citizenship database. District courts have dismissed 23 of those cases, according to the State Democracy Research Initiative, which is based at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla announced Monday that a whistleblower report alleged that the Department of Homeland Security is directing immigration officers to violate state laws and access confidential voter information as part of the Unlawful Voter Initiative, in which hundreds of federal agents were deployed to dig through voter rolls in search of evidence of voter fraud.
A separate Trump-administration effort to screen state voter rolls for noncitizens remains blocked by the courts and has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The program overhauled a Department of Homeland Security database known as SAVE so states could run their voter lists through federal records in bulk using Social Security numbers to flag registered voters the government cannot confirm are U.S. citizens. A federal judge struck the overhaul down in June as a violation of federal privacy law.
Any changes restricting vote-by-mail ballots could have had a major effect in San Diego County; 93% of San Diegans voted by mail – 791,977 of 849,587 – in the June 2026 elections.
The San Diego County Registrar of Voters Office is encouraging people to vote early and again providing multiple ways for people to cast their ballots leading up to Election Day.
“The Secretary of State has confirmed that no changes have been implemented and that counties should continue their election preparations as usual,” spokesperson Antonia Hutzell said.
She said that more than 150 official ballot drop boxes will open starting Tuesday, Oct. 6, and over 200 vote centers will be open for early voting beginning on Saturday, Oct. 24.
In an emergency response with two dissenting justices, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling blocking the implementation of the Postal Service rule for the upcoming elections. The lower court that the Postal Service had overstepped its authority by making election rules because the Constitution leaves that to Congress and the states.
Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, saying that the Postal service has “broad authority to regulate the mail.”
None of the Trump-appointed justices opposed blocking the rule. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote an additional opinion saying that the rule might later be found to be legal, but that changes could not be implemented right before an election.
“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” President Trump said on Truth Social following Monday’s court decision.
The decision follows months of uncertainty. On Sunday, California Treasurer and lieutenant governor candidate Fiona Ma told San Diego voters at an event at Bethel Baptist Church to avoid using the Postal Service to vote and instead to use drop boxes.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in a press release following the Supreme Court ruling that “the uncertainty is behind us,” and that voters can cast mail-in ballots “without fear” that they will be rejected. Weber also encouraged voters to vote early.
