AUGUSTA — A Monday ruling on President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting will likely have no impact on the November election in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said Tuesday.

“It’s important to realize that nothing has changed when it comes to the fundamental voting rights of every American in this country,” she said. “You can still vote by mail, even though Trump and the U.S. Postal Service seem to be doing their best to try to stop that, they have not yet been successful.”

In March, Trump signed an executive order that calls for the federal government to create a list of eligible voters and for the postal service to deliver ballots only to those on the list.

Then on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states that sued over the executive order could not challenge it because they have not yet been harmed. But Bellows noted that the Supreme Court did not rule on merits of the order itself. 

In its decision, the court wrote that the ruling “does not mean that any measure taken by the government to implement the order will necessarily be lawful. On that score, time will tell.”

Although the Nov. 3 election is 70 days away, Maine will begin mailing ballots to overseas military voters on Sept. 19. In-person absentee voting begins in early October.

In previous recent elections, Bellows has advised voters to mail in their ballots well in advance because of postal service delivery delays. In Maine, all ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day or they will not be counted.

She renewed that advice on Tuesday. 

“We encourage those seniors, people with disabilities and others, when ballots become available 30 days prior to Election Day, people should do everything in their power to vote as early as possible,” she said. “For some people, that may mean deciding to vote in person rather than voting by mail.”

A Democrat who ran for governor and in the U.S. Senate primary, Bellows said she and local clerks are preparing for another routine election, albeit one in which she expects high voter turnout.

“It is the states, not the federal government, that are in charge of our elections,” she said. “That was put in place by our founders with the idea that the states are closest to the people and it is how we ensure the safety and security of the election.”