{"id":48479,"date":"2026-05-30T13:12:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=48479"},"modified":"2026-05-30T13:12:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:12:05","slug":"postal-service-moving-forward-with-trumps-attack-on-mail-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/postal-service-moving-forward-with-trumps-attack-on-mail-voting\/","title":{"rendered":"Postal Service moving forward with Trump\u2019s attack on mail voting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/author\/jacob-knutson\">Jacob Knutson<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/author\/jimsaksa\">Jim Saksa<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May 29, 2026 (DemocracyDocket.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2269288904-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"President Trump signing his mail voting executive order in the White House in March 2026. (Photo: Alex Wong\/Getty Images)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2269288904-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2269288904-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2269288904-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2269288904-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2269288904-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\">President Trump signing his mail voting executive order in the White House in March 2026. (Photo: Alex Wong\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/news-alerts\/postal-service-trump-attack-mail-voting-proposed-rule\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Share on Facebook<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/news-alerts\/postal-service-trump-attack-mail-voting-proposed-rule\/&amp;text=Postal%20Service%20moving%20forward%20with%20Trump%E2%80%99s%20attack%20on%20mail%20voting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Share on Twitter<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/intent\/compose?text=https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/news-alerts\/postal-service-trump-attack-mail-voting-proposed-rule\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Share on Bluesky<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) said in a yet-to-be-published&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/public-inspection.federalregister.gov\/2026-10968.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">proposed rule<\/a>&nbsp;Friday that it\u2019s drawing up plans to radically crack down on mail voting by sending ballots only to voters who are registered with the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The proposed rule, which will be formally published next week, is an alarming step toward implementing President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping attack on mail voting ahead of the 2026 midterm election. And it would represent a massive expansion of federal control over voting, without congressional authorization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SIGN UP TODAY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Get updates straight to your inbox \u2014 for free<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Join 350,000 readers who rely on our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest in voting, elections and democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trump&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/news-alerts\/trump-signs-sweeping-order-attacking-mail-in-voting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">signed a sweeping executive order<\/a>&nbsp;in March that, in part, ordered the Postal Service to only send mail ballots to voters on lists created and controlled by the federal government.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The order is currently the subject of multiple lawsuits. USPS\u2019s proposed rule came a day after a federal judge overseeing one of the lawsuits&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/news-alerts\/judge-denies-attempt-to-stop-trumps-mail-voting-order\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">declined to block<\/a>&nbsp;the order. The judge concluded the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the order since federal agencies had not yet taken steps to implement it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, that appears to have changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>USPS is moving forward with the order even though legal experts and voting rights organizations have warned that it is a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to restrict the right to vote and usurp states\u2019 authority over elections.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the Constitution, states run elections and only Congress can set national standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The proposed rule would require state election officials to send USPS a list of voters who have requested a mail-in or absentee ballot at least 30 days before ballots are sent out under state law. If voters aren\u2019t on the list, they will not receive a ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also allows state officials to make \u201csupplemental submissions to enroll additional individuals or modify prior submissions until the last day that ballots may be mailed out to individuals under state law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this way, that provision tacitly admits that it will lead to errors that need to be fixed, whether through \u201csupplemental submissions\u201d or modifying \u201cprior submissions.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those errors, caused by a new federal government program that is not explicitly authorized by Congress, are precisely the kind of harm the plaintiffs challenging the executive order seek to prevent.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In their lawsuits, Democrats and voting-rights advocates argued that using USPS\u2019s list, as well as other federal registration lists included in Trump\u2019s order, would lead to eligible voters being unable to cast ballots. In part, that\u2019s because the lists would rely on Department of Homeland Security databases that have been shown to have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2026\/02\/13\/save-voter-citizenship-tool-mistakes-confusion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">serious flaws<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>USPS also said the names of mail voters would be associated with a \u201cunique barcode\u201d that is assigned to their ballot. It claimed that the barcode would \u201chelp determine adherence to federal law and facilitate law enforcement efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice (DOJ), said in a social media post Friday that the proposed rule was a move toward Trump\u2019s order being ruled unconstitutional.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOne step closer to standing, which means one step closer to an end to this charade,\u201d Levitt said, referring to U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols\u2019s ruling Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Nichols did not necessarily disagree with Democrats and pro-voting groups that Trump\u2019s order could be unlawful, he said they couldn\u2019t show that they had been harmed by it because federal agencies hadn\u2019t acted on the directives.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, though he was rejecting the plaintiffs\u2019 request for a permanent injunction against the order, Nichols specified that his decision was actually a message for the Trump administration to act in order to give the plaintiffs standing to sue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is not aimed at [the plaintiffs] but instead tells only the agencies to do something,\u201d Nichols, a Trump appointee, said of his decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Postal Service did not immediately respond to Democracy Docket\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Friday was the deadline Trump included in his order for Postmaster General David Steiner to initiate a rulemaking process to formally implement the president\u2019s mail voting restrictions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In recent weeks, Steiner, who also serves as CEO of USPS,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.democracydocket.com\/news-alerts\/report-trump-white-house-helping-build-national-voter-list\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">has met with<\/a>&nbsp;other senior Trump administration and DOJ officials to discuss ways to implement the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This story has been updated with new details throughout.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Jacob Knutson,&nbsp;Jim Saksa May 29, 2026 (DemocracyDocket.com) President Trump signing his mail voting executive order in the White House in March 2026. (Photo: Alex Wong\/Getty Images) The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) said in a yet-to-be-published&nbsp;proposed rule&nbsp;Friday that it\u2019s drawing up plans to radically crack down on mail voting by sending&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/postal-service-moving-forward-with-trumps-attack-on-mail-voting\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1879],"tags":[1958,1957],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48480,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48479\/revisions\/48480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}