'Radical crackdown' as Trump turns the Postal Service into a weapon

Donald Trump speaks with members of the media following a call with military service members, on Thanksgiving, in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 27, 2025. REUTERS/Anna Rose Layden/File Photo

Donald Trump is wasting no time on legal niceties in pushing for quashing of mail ballots for the November election.

Last Friday, one day after a federal judge declined temporarily to block the provision in Trump's election-related executive order, the U.S. Postal Service essentially announced that it would only deliver mail ballot applications to voters that the federal government recognizes, stopping the delivery of applications to tens of millions or more.

What the Postal Service rules made public last Friday was that it would strictly follow new mail-in ballot rules that require states to submit voter names, addresses and unique ballot barcodes for federal elections. The order also sets forth mandatory "best practices" for federal elections including Election Mail logos, tracking barcodes and design reviews.

No Democratic-run state as well as some Republican-run states has agreed to provide these names and private information to the government, arguing instead that this order is unconstitutional.

Whatever the wording, two things are true: Trump is seeking to stomp out mail-in voting with a federal order telling the states how to run their elections, and despite that single judge's decision not to put a stop to the order right now, the legal issues here are still very much in question.

Nevertheless, we should view this as a shot at blocking mail ballots that Trump has decided will run against his leanings about how the election should turn out. Along with redistricted Congressional lines now being upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, attacks on voting machinery and vote-counting methods, the reduction of polling places particularly in rural, minority districts, Trump and Republicans are going full bore at derailing our November elections. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on two elections-related cases, one on a Republican effort to strike state laws that allow late-arriving ballots postmarked by Election Day, and the other about erasing more legal limits on campaign spending.

A Broad Campaign for Control
However broad the Trump campaign to control elections is, the challenges must be specific about each aspect. What we are seeing already in the redistricting cases is that confusion is building about which contradictory court orders in different states are changing or upholding procedures for early voting in primaries going on even now.

The official explanation from the Postal Service is that the rule would help determine how many ballot applications were mailed and allow officials to compare that figure with the number of returned to detect potential issues for further investigation. The rule would apply to general, special and runoff federal elections, but not primaries or ballots sent to military and overseas voters.

The postal service apparently would create state-specific "Mail-In and Absentee Participation Lists" through a new Federal Ballot Mail Portal. The proposal would also let the USPS return outbound federal ballot mailings that do not meet the new standards or are not tied to state-submitted voter lists.

Where Trump sees "rigged" elections through encouraging voting from home, democracy defenders see aggressive steps to block the vote.

In its statements, Democracy Docket headed by election lawyer Mark Elias calls these Postal Service rules "a radical crackdown on mail voting" and "an alarming step" towards trying to control who can vote this November. It also represents a massive expansion of federal control over voting, without congressional authorization.

Trump's March 31 executive order on elections directed the Postal Service to begin rule-making on mail-in and absentee ballot services. It triggered immediate lawsuits that have yet to be heard. The judicial ruling against blocking the new procedures said the challenge was premature because agencies had not yet carried it out. Publishing the new rule – expected today — could be the start of implementation as well as a period of public comment.

Democrats and voting rights groups argue that Trump's order intrudes on states' authority over elections and have defended mail-in ballots. The use of mail-in balloting expanded during COVID for health reasons, and ballot by mail strategies are used by both major parties, but Trump has decided the practice favors Democrats.

Under the Constitution, states run elections and only Congress can set national standards.

The lawsuits challenging limits says the new rules will lead to eligible voters being unable to cast ballots. In part, that's because the lists would rely on Department of Homeland Security databases that have been shown to have serious flaws.

The resolutions of all these cases would be easier with a huge turnout of voters.

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