The Supreme Court’s divided ruling on Monday was a temporary procedural win for the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterms. That raises the question of whether the administration will also get a permanent win as the clock ticks toward November.

In its ruling on Monday, the GOP-appointed majority said that blue states’ challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order was premature. Therefore, the majority said, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Massachusetts lacked jurisdiction to issue an injunction in that case against the administration. The majority emphasized that its ruling “does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the [Executive] Order will necessarily be lawful,” adding: “On that score, time will tell.”

That time may come soon. The next steps are unfolding with new litigation that could quickly make its way back to the justices for a more definitive ruling.

To understand how, we can look to a separate but related case in which Talwani issued an injunction that was not formally before the justices in their ruling Monday, and therefore is still in effect. That case was brought by voting rights groups.

Before the high court’s ruling Monday, the voting rights groups had told Talwani in an emergency motion over the weekend that the administration had flouted her injunction by posting a “final rule” on Friday that would impose new mail ballot requirements for the midterms. The rule is set to take effect with publication on Wednesday, so the groups asked Talwani to enforce her injunction against the administration’s latest action by then. Talwani told the administration to respond to voting rights groups’ emergency motion by 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday morning, so that she could have time to rule on the motion by Wednesday.

The administration responded as ordered, and it also filed an emergency motion of its own, in which it asked Talwani to lift her injunction in the voting rights case based on the Supreme Court’s new ruling in the states’ case. The administration said the new ruling shows that her initial injunction was wrong and so she not only should reject the voting rights groups’ emergency motion to enforce her injunction but also should reconsider the injunction itself. The administration told the Obama appointee that the latest word from the justices “leaves no room for any further dispute: this Court lacked jurisdiction to issue the preliminary-injunction in this case [brought by voting rights groups], just as it lacked jurisdiction to enter summary judgment in the California case [brought by states], because there is no justiciable controversy over a proposed rule until it is actually finalized by an agency.”

The administration noted that the voting rights plaintiffs could amend their complaint to challenge the final rule, so that is another possibility of how the litigation could unfold. But in the meantime, the administration said the judge should grant its motion to reconsider her injunction and then deny the voting rights groups’ emergency motion to enforce that injunction as moot. “Now that the Supreme Court has made clear that this Court never had jurisdiction to issue the preliminary-injunction order in the first place, respectfully, this Court should not compound that error by issuing further relief to ‘enforce’ its prior, jurisdictionally defective order,” it told the judge.

The administration asked her to rule on its emergency motion, which the voting rights groups oppose, by 5:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday. If she does not rule by then, the administration said it is prepared to challenge her injunction at the federal appeals court that covers Massachusetts. So this litigation could be on appeal again by Tuesday evening.

When Talwani set the litigation schedule on the voting rights groups’ emergency motion on Sunday, she seemed poised to rule against the administration again. If so, the question is whether and how Monday’s Supreme Court ruling affects her approach.

In any event, the administration said it is prepared to appeal any further ruling against it. So we will be looking to see what the judge does next on both parties’ emergency motions, mindful that the justices can have the final word.

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