特朗普总统不会出现在下一届总统大选的选票上。但他对所谓选举舞弊问题的执念——尤其是在邮寄投票方面——几乎可以确定，当他的继任者产生时，他将继续推动这一议题。最高法院正邀请他这样做。
President Trump will not be on the ballot in the next election for president. But his obsession with the supposed problem of vote fraud — especially when it comes to mail-in voting — all but guarantees that he will continue to press the issue when his successor is chosen. The Supreme Court is inviting him to try.
在2026年中期选举前，法院对特朗普先生的投票压制企图做出了好坏参半的裁决。但这些裁决给了他一份明确的礼物：一份路线图，指引他如何在2028年总统大选年中，按其心意塑造合格选民的范围。
The courts have provided mixed verdicts on Mr. Trump’s attempts at vote suppression in advance of the 2026 midterms. But the rulings have handed him an unambiguous gift: a road map for shaping the universe of eligible voters to his liking in the presidential election year of 2028.
上个月，最高法院初步批准了政府试图筛选不合格选民（包括非公民）的其中一项举措。国土安全部决定扩大一个名为“福利资格外籍人士系统核查”（SAVE）的数据库，该数据库近四十年来允许联邦、州和地方政府机构利用个人履历等详细信息，核实申请公共福利的非公民的公民身份和移民身份。根据特朗普的扩展计划，该数据库增加了社会保障记录，政府邀请各地利用它批量核查投票资格，而不仅仅是福利资格。
Last month, the Supreme Court gave tentative approval to one of the administration’s attempts to ferret out improperlyed voters, including noncitizens. The Department of Homeland Security decided to expand a database called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, which for almost four decades has allowed federal, state and local government agencies to verify the citizenship and immigration status of noncitizens applying for public benefits using biographic and other details. Under the Trump expansion, the database added Social Security records, and the administration invited localities to use it to make bulk demands to determine eligibility for voting, not just benefits.
这些社会保障记录从未用于投票相关事务，且已知有时不完整或过时。特朗普的计划可能成为中期选举中大规模剥夺合法选民投票权的潜在工具。
These Social Security records have never been used in connection with voting, and they are known sometimes to be incomplete or out of date. The Trump plan could have been a potential tool for mass disenfranchisement of legal voters in the midterms.
但在9月25日的一项裁决中，最高法院推翻了那些法院的判决，允许该法规生效——但有一项重要限制。由于另一项联邦法律限制在大选前90天内对投票规则进行重大更改，该数据库只能用于查询特定个人，而不能进行“批量搜索”。正如大法官们在其未署名的意见书中所写，这90天的“暂停期限制了允许立即使用国土安全部数据库的潜在影响”。
But in a ruling on Sept. 25, the Supreme Court, with the three Democratic appointees dissenting, overruled those courts and allowed the regulation to go into effect — but with an important limitation. Because another federal law limits major changes to voting rules within 90 days of an election, the database can be used only to inquire about specific individuals, not to conduct “bulk searches.”As the justices wrote in their unsigned opinion, the 90-day “moratorium limits the potential impact” of allowing the immediate use of the D.H.S. database.
但2028年有足够的时间进行“批量搜索”，从而进行大规模选民清理。一个对2026年仅是微弱安慰的决定，对2028年来说竟毫无安慰可言。
But there is plenty of time for “bulk searches,” and thus mass voter purges, in 2028. A decision that was small comfort for 2026 turns out to be no comfort at all for 2028.