Whether the Supreme Court should stay a District Court injunction that prevents the Government from implementing Executive Order No. 14399. The Court must determine if the Government is likely to succeed on the merits of its argument that the respondent States lack standing and that their claims are not ripe. Additionally, the Court must evaluate whether the Government will suffer irreparable harm and if the balance of equities favors a stay.

• The respondent States lack Article III standing and their claims are not ripe because the Executive Order is an internal directive that imposes no legal obligations on them.
• The District Court's injunction causes irreparable harm by interfering with the internal operations of the Executive Branch and hindering the implementation of election integrity goals for the 2026 midterms.
• The balance of equities favors a stay because the Executive Order makes no demands of the States and thus staying the injunction will not concretely harm them.

• The Executive Order unconstitutionally infringes upon the States' sovereign authority to administer elections.
• The States suffer concrete and imminent injury because they must divert resources to plan for compliance and face a credible threat of federal prosecution under §2(b) if they do not use the Citizenship Lists.
• The Order's mandate for the Postal Service to initiate rulemaking requires a fundamental and costly overhaul of existing state mail-in ballot systems.

• The Court applied the test for a stay pending appeal, requiring a showing that the applicant is likely to succeed on the merits, is likely to suffer irreparable harm, and that the balance of equities favors relief, noting that the first two factors are "the most critical" (*Nken v. Holder*).
• The Court found the Government likely to succeed on the merits because the respondent States lack standing—which requires an injury that is "concrete, particularized, and imminent" (*Carney v. Adams*)—and their claims are not ripe, as they depend on "contingent future events" (*Trump v. New York*).
• Regarding §2(a), the Court reasoned that as an internal directive imposing no obligations on States, any predicted injury is "no more than conjecture" and relies on an unduly long "chain of inferences" (*Trump v. New York*; *Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA*).
• Regarding §2(b), the Court held that setting prosecutorial priorities is an Article II power and the States lack a "well-founded fear" of prosecution because the Order contains no textual basis for prosecuting States for failing to use Citizenship Lists (*Virginia v. American Booksellers Assn., Inc.*).
• Regarding §3, the Court determined that a directive to initiate a "proposed rulemaking" is not a final rule and that speculating on the contents of a hypothetical final rule violates Article III (*Clapper*; *Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Assn.*; *Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke*; *Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro*).
• The Court concluded the Government will suffer irreparable harm because the injunction "improperly intrudes on a coordinate branch" and interferes with internal Executive Branch operations (*Trump v. CASA, Inc.*; *INS v. Legalization Assistance Project*).
• The Court noted that the injunction deals a "serious setback" to the Executive's goals for the 2026 midterms (*Coleman v. Paccar Inc.*).
• The Court found the balance of equities favors the Government because the Order makes no demand of the States, meaning a stay will not concretely harm them.