The Trump administration is done treating mail-in voting like an honor system.
It’s time to put into place voting integrity acts. Now.
The U.S. Postal Service unveiled a sweeping proposed rule Friday that would require states to submit the name, address, and a unique barcode for every voter receiving a mail-in or absentee ballot in federal elections.
It’s the most significant overhaul of mail voting in American history. It would give the federal government tools to track ballots from the moment they leave the post office to the moment they come back, and flag anything that doesn’t add up.
Democrats are already freaking out, and promising to fight it in court.
The proposed rule, published in the Federal Register Tuesday with a 30-day public comment period, follows President Dpma;d Trump’s March 31 executive order titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.”
Under the new system, USPS would no longer serve as a passive delivery vendor for state election offices. Instead, it would become an active partner that receives voter list data from states, tracks every outbound and return ballot through unique barcodes, compares the number of ballots sent against the number returned, and flags discrepancies for criminal investigation.
Ballots that don’t meet the new federal standards, or aren’t tied to a state-submitted voter list, could be rejected before they ever reach a local election office.
The rule would also mandate standardized Election Mail logos, state-specific participation lists managed through a new Federal Ballot Mail Portal, and uniform envelope design requirements. It applies to general, special, and runoff federal elections, but not primaries or ballots sent to military and overseas voters.
Will Scharf, senior associate counsel to the president, made the administration’s case plainly.
“We’re going to take federal data, we’re going to ensure that each state’s election officials are provided with a comprehensive view of who the eligible voters in their jurisdiction actually are, allowing them to properly verify that everybody voting in their elections is legally able to vote,” Scharf said. He added that the order “directs the Postmaster General and the U.S. Postal Service to take bold new measures to verify that ballots both being sent to people are being sent to people who are eligible to vote, and then that ballots being returned are being properly returned by eligible voters only.”
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, declined Thursday to block the underlying executive order, and ruled that legal challenges to it were premature because the policies hadn’t yet been implemented. That ruling came one day before USPS published the rule.
Democrats didn’t wait for the ink to dry before freaking out.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “another malicious attempt by the Trump administration to suppress the votes of millions.”
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s existing lawsuit accuses Trump of trying to “rewrite election rules for his own perceived partisan advantage.”
The administration’s reply was blunt.
“The entire Trump Administration will continue lawfully enacting the agenda President Trump was elected to enact — which includes the safety and security of American elections,” the White House said in a statement.
The USPS rule moves on a separate track from the SAVE America Act, the broader election integrity legislation Trump has been pushing Congress to pass. The House passed the bill February 11, with more than 70 Republican co-sponsors. It would require photo identification to vote in federal elections, mandate proof of U.S. citizenship to register, remove non-citizens from voter rolls, and end universal mail-in ballots with limited exceptions.
More than 80% of Americans support voter ID requirements according to polling. The bill is stalled in the Senate, where it lacks the Democratic votes needed to advance.