The Arizona law banning so-called ballot harvesting will remain in effect at least through the state's presidential primary next month.
A divided 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the four-year-old law, which prohibits collecting and returning the mail-in ballots of a non-family member, was enacted with discriminatory intent in violation of constitutional protections and the Voting Rights Act.
The appeals court also struck down another section of the law, allowing election officials to discard ballots cast at the wrong precinct. State and national Democratic campaign committees challenged the law in court following its enactment in 2016 by the Republican-controlled Legislature.
On Tuesday, however, the 9th Circuit agreed to delay its order while Republican state Attorney General Mark Brnovich appeals to the Supreme Court.
It's unclear when the court will announce whether it will hear the case, but it's extremely unlikely that would happen in the next five weeks. If the justices demur, the ballot harvesting law would be overturned. Arizona, with 67 delegates at stake, is the smallest of four states with Democratic presidential primaries March 17.
At its best, neighbors or party operatives gathering and depositing the absentee or mail-in ballots of elderly, disabled or rural voters is a great way to boost turnout. At its worst, it's an invitation to commit fraud by partisans who pick up but then never deliver completed forms from unfriendly precincts.
About 80 percent of Arizona voters receive a mail-in ballot they may use if they don't choose instead to vote in person on Election Day, according to the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, and those ballots can be returned by mail or in person.
Before the law was enacted, anyone — often a campaign volunteer or staffer — could collect and return someone else's unmailed ballot.
Republicans have been critical of the ballot harvesting newly permitted in California, where last-minute deliveries of votes resulted in the election of several Democrats to Congress after tallies on election night had the GOP candidates ahead. And North Carolina was compelled to conduct a do-over of one 2018 House election after evidence surfaced of significant GOP ballot harvesting, which is against the law in that state.
Arizona is one of nine states that allow only a family member the ability to return a mail-in ballot on behalf of another.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.