New Postal Service Rule Would Withhold Mail-In Ballots 

The alleged party of small government has somehow managed to politicize the post office. During a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Postmaster General David Steiner said that the Postal Service would withhold mail-in ballots in states that refuse to submit voter data to the federal government. 

According to the New York Times, the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing was focused on a proposed rule the Postal Service issued earlier this month. “If a state refuses to turn their absentee voter list over to the federal government, will the Postal Service still mail their ballots under this … rule?” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the committee’s top Democrat, asked Steiner.

“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner replied.

Steiner said that while the Postal Service will comply with whatever the courts may order, the proposed rule aligns with an executive order that President Donald Trump issued in March. 

From The New York Times:

It directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a “state citizenship list” based on data from citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security records and other federal databases.

The order directs federal officials to send the list to state election officials, and orders the attorney general to prioritize prosecution of election officials who provide federal ballots to ineligible voters. It also directs the U.S. Postal Service not to transmit mail-in or absentee ballots from any individual not included on the “state citizenship list.”

Election experts and Democratic state election officials rejected the president’s directive as legally invalid. Officials in Arizona and Oregon pledged to fight the executive order in court. Marc Elias, a Democratic election lawyer, also vowed to file a lawsuit against the order.

The Postal Service’s rule would require postal workers to screen mail-in ballots using voter lists provided by the states. This might be a surprise to y’all, but postal workers aren’t election workers, and I’m doubtful they’re being paid enough to take on such a massive undertaking in addition to their regular duties. There are so many obvious ways this can go wrong, resulting in legal, eligible voters having their votes go uncounted. 

The maddening thing about this proposed rule is that it’s a solution in search of a problem. Trump’s obsession with voter fraud and mail-in voting isn’t rooted in evidence. So many studies have shown that mail-in voting is safe, with voter fraud an incredibly rare crime. There has been no evidence that thousands of people are voting illegally, and Trump knows that. This isn’t actually about stopping voter fraud; it’s another attempt to rig the game in Trump’s favor.

“Please push back on being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said during the hearing. “The Postal Service is one of the most important institutions in our country. Don’t taint it with the obsession of this one man.”

This proposed rule feels like the kind of thing we all would’ve agreed is blatantly anti-democratic only 12 years ago, and that Congress or the courts would’ve wasted no time in stopping. Yet in our big year of 2026, the best we have are senators basically going “please, pretty pretty please don’t disenfranchise voters at the behest of the president.” 

If you live in a blue state, or a state where the governor has publicly said they’ll refuse to comply with Trump’s executive order, I’d suggest taking your mail-in ballot to a dedicated ballot drop box or polling station. Does this defeat the convenience of mail-in voting? Yeah, but I’d rather know my ballot will be counted as opposed to running the risk of it being tossed out cause the GOP needs to cheat to win. 

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