The U.S. Supreme Court last week rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to allow the U.S. Postal Service to deny delivery of mail-in ballots in states like Hawaii, but fears continue that the administration will try to intimidate voters and sow doubt about the security of U.S. elections ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.

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While voter rights groups celebrated the court’s ruling, they are urging Hawaii voters to return their mail-in ballots as soon as possible ahead of any potential last-minute attempts to further suppress voter turnout on Election Day, pointing to FBI Director Kash Patel’s refusal to rule out sending armed agents to polling places.

And fears continue that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could appear at voting locations and detain anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally.

Both federal actions would be illegal in Hawaii, according to Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago, along with any threats or intimidation at in-person voting sites. County election officials have the power to refuse entry to those locations, even to federal agents, he said.

“Voter intimidation is already illegal,” Nago said.

Civil rights groups and labor unions sued the Trump administration on Friday, claiming aggressive immigration enforcement and suggestions of armed agents at polling sites violated the Voting Rights Act, the New York Times reported.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claims Trump and other members of his administration were intimidating voters, especially voters of color, the Times reported.

The grassroots organization Indivisible Honolulu, part of the statewide Indivisible Hawai‘i network, continues to raise awareness about voting rights and has organized an election security lunch and webinar schedule for Saturday.

“For the moment we can breathe a sigh of relief that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against Trump’s desperate attempts to restrict mail-in voting for the November election, which would have caused major disruptions for us in Hawai‘i. But we need to stay vigilant and learn about the many actions we can take to protect our right to vote and ensure that our vote is counted,” the group said in announcing the event.

In a statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Marlene Thom, Indivisible Hawai‘i’s lead on voting issues, said: “The FBI, ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have indicated or refused to rule out that they will have a presence at voting locations nationally. Because Hawai‘i has a large population of immigrants, we believe these agencies may seize on that as a pretext for menacing voters at polling locations and drop boxes, even though non- citizen voting is extremely rare here and nationally and has never made the slightest difference in any election outcome.”

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State Sen. Karl Rhoads (D, Nuuanu-Downtown- Iwilei) said the reason that the Trump administration doesn’t “like mail-in voting is because it’s harder to suppress voting.”

“But I’m less concerned that they’ll do it here because they’re probably aware that most people who vote on Election Day here are MAGA who are irrationally suspicious of using mail-in votes, despite the fact that their leader uses them all the time,” he said. “It would be shooting themselves in the foot if they’re trying to intimidate their own voters from coming to polls in Hawaii or around the country. In Texas, Trump did very well in ‘24 with Hispanics. But that support has collapsed, so they can go to a polling place and just pick out brown people and probably have a pretty good chance that person is going to vote Democratic.”

Gov. Josh Green said in a statement after the Supreme Court ruling, “This U.S. Supreme Court decision provides important certainty for Hawai‘i as we prepare for the upcoming election. Hawa‘i voters deserve confidence that our elections will be administered fairly and securely, and that every eligible voter will have the opportunity to cast their ballot.”

Camron Hurt, state director of Common Cause Hawai’i, worries the court ruling will not deter Trump or future efforts by election skeptics.

“What the Supreme Court’s decision did was stop it for this election,” Hurt said. “It does not stop it, though, in perpetuity. So the pressure is on to show that this (mail-in voting) is a vital way that people use to engage with the election system and it needs to stay. … People think it just came with COVID and that’s not accurate. It’s been around since the Civil War, so it’s not something new. And the current generation of mail-in voting was driven by Republicans initially. They saw it as a way to get more participation from rural voters in Republican states. But as it started to go over to the Democratic side, Republicans started to pull away from mail-in voting.”

Judith Wong, president of the League of Women Voters, said, “The game’s not over. We’re going to get through this election in the normal process. But as soon as it’s over, they’re going to start working on trying to disenfranchise vote by mail for the ‘28 election.”

In the Aug. 8 primary election, Hawaii voters again showed an overwhelming preference to vote by mail, which Wong said, “means you vote in the security of your own home. So it is much harder for them to send armed men to your home than it is to send them to voting service centers or to polling places. So, in Hawaii, we have the security of knowing we can vote safely from our own homes. I feel very bad for the rest of the nation who hasn’t come to that realization.”

Political analyst Neal Milner said he believes Trump still has time to sow doubts in voters’ minds with weeks to go ahead of the general election. “They’re keeping the issue alive, for sure,” he said.

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