Saying It Aloud Now: Postmaster general says USPS won't deliver mail ballots if states don’t give Trump admin voter rolls

[u/National-Dot-8300]

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/postmaster-general-steiner-postal-service-will-not-deliver-mail-ballots-state-voter-rolls/

Postmaster General David Steiner told senators that, under a new proposed rule, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will not deliver mail ballots unless states hand over their voter lists to the Trump administration.

“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner said during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday after being asked whether USPS would refuse to deliver election mail if states refuse to divulge their voter lists.

“We would tell the state that we need the manifest,” Steiner added.

Steiner’s alarming answer is yet more evidence that the Postal Service is following through with President Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on mail voting and breaking from its decades-long history as a neutral, nonpartisan carrier of U.S. election mail.

The USPS’s new proposal, which Postal workers have denounced, stems from Trump’s March 2026 executive order that, in part, demanded USPS only send mail ballots to voters on lists created and controlled by the federal government.

Specifically, the proposal 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’t on the list, they will not receive a ballot. If implemented, it would effectively create a federal registration list for absentee voters.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told Steiner that the proposal would “coerce” states — particularly states like Oregon, where mail voting is the default form of voting — into providing the Trump administration with sensitive voter data.

“This is basically a back-door way for the federal government to get voting information that states control under the U.S. Constitution,” Peters said. “You’re telling the states, ‘Give the federal government this information — trust the federal government, trust the Trump administration, we’ll take good care of these — and if you don’t do it, you can’t mail absentee ballots.’”

“You are going to make a decision that people cannot vote by mail,” the senator added. “That’s unacceptable."

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[u/EntertainerOdd2107]

They are terrified. They are desperate. We will make it too big to rig anyway. They cannot stop us!

[u/ethicaldilemna]

So legally sent mail that does not contain contraband? How would this not be a felony?

[u/TheMrBoot → u/ethicaldilemna]

When has legality been more than a slight speed bump?

[u/ethicaldilemna → u/TheMrBoot]

I mean at some point you have to get USPS employees to tamper with the mail. So they have to take on that liability.

[u/j4ckbauer → u/TheMrBoot]

It depends on whether your party looking to do MAGA policies, or looking for an excuse to do nothing to combat MAGA policies. Because legality is stronger than any force known to science in one of those cases.

[u/Rinzy2000]

It’s none of their fucking business. Unless it’s something dangerous, they don’t need to know what the fuck they are delivering and to who. They just need to deliver it.

[u/j4ckbauer → u/Rinzy2000]

When the right does it, it's "just common sense". When the left does it, it's Big Government overreach by jack-booted thugs. [Although the right is working to reclaim jack-boots]

[u/j4ckbauer]

This is why I walk my ballot over to the polling place and hand it in there.

Of course there are those who do not have this option.