{"id":49528,"date":"2026-08-04T12:56:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=49528"},"modified":"2026-08-04T12:56:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T19:56:46","slug":"house-dem-calls-for-removal-of-postmaster-general-for-turning-usps-into-instrument-of-voter-suppression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/08\/04\/house-dem-calls-for-removal-of-postmaster-general-for-turning-usps-into-instrument-of-voter-suppression\/","title":{"rendered":"House Dem Calls for Removal of Postmaster General for Turning USPS Into \u2018Instrument of Voter Suppression\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Chicago,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A United States Postal Service mail collection box is seen on a street in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on July 27, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Marcin Golba\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Postmaster General David Steiner has said that USPS would not deliver ballots in states that don\u2019t hand over their voter rolls to the Trump administration for purging under a since-blocked executive order.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aug 03, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Democratic congressman is calling for Postmaster General David Steiner to be removed from office for allowing the US Postal Service<\/a> to turn into what he called \u201ca partisan instrument of voter suppression\u201d for President Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.), a senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter<\/a> to Steiner and members of the USPS board of governors on Monday criticizing the postmaster general for refusing to clarify if he intends to follow an executive order<\/a> signed by Trump in March ordering the Postal Service to halt the delivery of mail-in ballots in states that do not turn over lists of voters to be checked against a federal citizenship list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Warning<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Warning of Partisan Takeover, Senate Democrat Demands Freeze on Trump Postal Board Nominees<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Election<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In \u2018Win for Voters,\u2019 Another Federal Court Blocks Trump Attack on Mailed Ballots<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A federal judge has\u00a0blocked<\/a>\u00a0the administration from implementing the order\u2019s provisions that create federal citizenship lists and allow USPS to condition ballot delivery on states submitting voter information, ruling that Trump had usurped powers belonging to the states and Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/CongressmanRaja\/status\/2084305331585225119?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2084305331585225119%7Ctwgr%5E07cdfcb5108e5284b0853904deaf031ba9c2a0dd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fpostmaster-general-voting<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, the administration and a group of 12 Republican states filed emergency applications asking the US Supreme Court<\/a> to allow the order to take effect prior to November\u2019s midterms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krishnamoorthi said that this filing contains \u201ca troubling contradiction.\u201d It argues that Trump had merely issued \u201cgeneral policy guidance\u201d to agencies rather than concrete directives, and that it\u2019s therefore premature for courts to rule on its constitutionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUSPS\u2019s apparent implementation efforts over the past four months tell a different story,\u201d Krishnamoorthi wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed out that USPS had sent the rule to the White House<\/a> Office of Management and Budget<\/a> for review and had begun to create a federal ballot portal, state voter participation lists, and procedures on accepting ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steiner, meanwhile, said during a hearing<\/a> in June\u2014while the order was facing litigation but had not yet been struck down\u2014that he fully intended to block mail-in ballots from states that don\u2019t hand over their voter rolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krishnamoorthi also wrote that the administration\u2019s argument before the Supreme Court<\/a> that blocking the order would cause \u201cirreparable harm\u201d does not withstand factual scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that noncitizen voting, which the administration claims the order is meant to prevent, is not only already a federal crime, but exceedingly rare. One analysis<\/a> by the Brookings Institution last year found that in general elections between 2016-22, there were approximately four instances of mail-in voting fraud per 10 million mail ballots cast\u2014about 0.000043% of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe administration has not produced evidence of fraud on a scale capable of affecting an election outcome,\u201d Krishnamoorthi wrote. \u201cDisenfranchising millions of eligible voters\u2014including military personnel serving overseas, seniors, rural voters, individuals with disabilities, and working families\u2014is not a proportionate response to fraud rates of this magnitude.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also wrote that Steiner had repeatedly refused his requests for information about how USPS has implemented the executive order and whether it is still doing so despite the court\u2019s order to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA postmaster general who will not tell Congress whether his agency is complying with a federal court order, and who will not appear to answer for that silence, has already forfeited the trust the office requires,\u201d wrote Krishnamoorthi. \u201cI am therefore calling on the Postal Service Board of Governors to remove you as Postmaster General, and I will urge my colleagues on the committee to join that call.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is already evidence that a voter citizenship registry run by the Trump administration<\/a> could disenfranchise lawful voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June, a federal judge found<\/a> that states using an expanded version of the federal government\u2019s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, which is used by the federal government to track immigration<\/a> status, led local voting officials to wrongly cancel the voter registrations of naturalized citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Travis County, Texas<\/a>, an investigation found that 25% of the people flagged as \u201cnoncitizen matches\u201d had already proven their US citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jasleen Singh, a senior counsel and manager in the Brennan Center\u2019s Democracy<\/a> Program, wrote<\/a> in June that the administration \u201chas been engaged in a concerted campaign to undermine elections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPart of that involves collecting state voter files and using federal data sources to lend pseudolegitimacy to false claims of widespread fraud,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile there may be valid ways to use federal data to support election officials\u2019 efforts to keep voter rolls accurate and up to date, there are notable shortcomings in such data, and it may be misused to spread misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A United States Postal Service mail collection box is seen on a street in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on July 27, 2026. \u00a0(Photo by Marcin Golba\/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Postmaster General David Steiner has said that USPS would not deliver ballots in states that don\u2019t hand over their voter rolls… Continue reading → <\/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":[2088],"tags":[2049],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49528"}],"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=49528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49529,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49528\/revisions\/49529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}