WASHINGTON D.C. (KEYT) – The entire Democratic Caucus of the U.S. Senate detailed their opposition to a new U.S. Postal Service rule proposed earlier this month to have the executive branch take over mail-based elections nationwide.
On June 2, the U.S. Postal Service published a proposal to amend the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual to add a section creating a federal registry of approved voters and requiring states to notify the federal agency of every voter who receives a mail-in ballot.
The proposal also includes a new enforcement tool for the federal agency to ensure compliance with the executive branch's supervision of acceptable voters nationwide.
"This provision will help determine adherence to federal law and facilitate law enforcement efforts," the Postal Service shared. "[T]he provided lists will evidence how many ballots have been mailed, and allow law enforcement officials to compare the total number of mailed ballots to the total number of received ballots to detect potential issues meriting further investigation. This is accomplished by ensuring that individuals who receive a mail-in or absentee ballot are included on the State-Specific Participation Lists [created by the U.S. Postal Service]."
Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states that decisions regarding, "the times, places, and manner of holding Elections" are delegated to Congress and managed by each state.
It does not mention any executive branch position, office, department or agency.
The Postal Service stated the new rule is intended to comply with Executive Order 14399 issued by President Trump on March 31 of this year.
The executive order made sweeping changes to national elections in the following ways:
Tasked the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration to create a list of voters using federal databases and transmit that voter list to elections officials in each state at least 60 days before any federal election Directed the Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service to develop lists of voters enrolled with the federal agency for mail-in voting and coordinate with the Department of Justice to investigate any use of mailed elections materials outside of federally authorized mail-in voting Ordered the Attorney General of the United States to take all lawful steps to stop non-compliance with the new elections rules and required states and localities to preserve all records of voter participation in any federal election for five years"President Trump issued his Executive Order [14399] directing USPS [U.S. Postal Service] to issue a rule to establish compulsory specifications for election mail and create a master absentee voter list of millions of American voters – with the power to refuse to deliver their ballots," noted Tuesday's letter signed by 47 Senators to the Postal Service's Postmaster General and members of its Board of Governors. "The Order is a blatant violation of the Constitution, which vests the authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of federal elections with the states, subject to alterations made by Congress."
"No federal statute vests the President or USPS with any authority to regulate elections of any kind. Accordingly, multiple states and organizations have filed lawsuits challenging the Executive Order," added the legislators. "The framers of our Constitution understood the dangers of centralizing power over federal elections and accordingly vested the primary authority to regulate the 'times, places, and manner' of federal elections with the states, subject to alterations by statute enacted by Congress. The Constitution similarly vests the authority to determine the eligibility of voters with the states—not the President, and certainly not with USPS."
According to the Postal Service, it is authorized to adopt, amend, and repeal rules and regulations concerning the processing of mail under 39 U.S.C. Section 401 and Section 404 and that the sweeping changes to elections would, "apply uniform standards for the mailing of absentee ballots to and from voters, which the Postal Service understands will facilitate the faithful execution of federal law."
That provided authorization was directly noted by Tuesday's letter to the Postal Service.
"The proposal simply cites two sections of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 to justify USPS's regulation of federal elections," explained Tuesday's letter. "These sections provide specific postal powers and general authorization to issue regulations but say nothing about regulating federal elections. Indeed, Title 39 explicitly says, 'In providing services […] the Postal Service shall not […] make any undue or unreasonable discrimination among users of the mails" – this proposal does the exact opposite."
In April of this year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined a coalition of 23 other Attorneys General filing for a summary judgement in their legal challenge to the Trump Administration's unprecedented attempt to federalize elections.
The proposed changes to mail-based elections appears to be an attempt to implement Executive Order 14399 after its was largely blocked in federal court argued the Senate members in their letter this week.
"The proposed rule USPS issued on June 2 suffers from all the same legal deficiencies of the Executive Order [14399] and cannot be lawfully implemented. The proposed rule would illegally condition a state's exercise of its constitutional authority to utilize mail-in ballots on submitting its complete absentee voter rolls to USPS and complying with USPS mandatory election mail specifications. Specifically, the proposal requires any state that permits votes to be cast by mail to submit to USPS each absentee or mail-in voter's name, address, and their unique Intelligent Mail Barcode. The regulation purports to permit only states to control which of their voters are enrolled on the new master list, but this new and unnecessary master list of American voters would then be controlled by USPS and ultimately President Trump."
The lawsuit noted that the changes would requires states to revise their respective election-related laws and procedures even after some states have already held primaries or are about to and a few months before standard voting procedures for the 2026 General Election begin across the country.
That expedited timeline for the major changes to elections was noted in Tuesday's letter.
"Critically, the proposed rule requires USPS to conduct a verification process to ensure that states comply with the regulation's mandates prior to USPS accepting ballots and mailing them to voters. For such a consequential regulation of American democracy, the regulation stunningly lacks any detailed information about the process USPS intends to use to verify each piece of outbound election mail. Nevertheless, this new 'verification process' empowers USPS to serve as the final arbiter of whether ballots meet the unilateral federal standards and are adequate to be delivered to voters – granting USPS the ultimate authority to decide which Americans can cast a ballot by mail. What the proposal also makes clear is that if a state chooses not to provide USPS with their voter rolls that state cannot mail ballots to their voters, effectively prohibiting vote-by-mail in those states. Even if a state does provide USPS its voter rolls, USPS can still disenfranchise individual voters if their ballots do not meet USPS's demanding requirements."
California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and general elections in Vermont are all conducted through universal vote-by-mail systems.
"The proposed regulation demands that the Postal Service set up an entirely new system and database to process and transmit millions of absentee ballots that is secure and accessible to every American election official, just months prior to a general election," detailed Tuesday's letter. "This endeavor will also allegedly be accomplished without any dedicated resources or funding at a time when the Postal Service's finances are under immense strain. In fact, the Postal Service has recently suspended regular retirement contributions and placed limits on all non-essential spending."
The Postal Service has already implemented changes to how ballots are processed, impacting how early some voters, including every single voter in San Luis Obispo County, must mail their ballot in order for it to be counted.
This also is not the first attempt to assert executive branch authority over elections without Congressional input during President Trump's second term.
On March 25 of last year, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14248 which was met with a different lawsuit filed by a coalition of Attorneys General.
The group of state prosecutors secured a preliminary injunction that remains in effect and a motion by the Trump Administration to dismiss that lawsuit was denied by a federal judge in District Court in Massachusetts.
In addition to those election-specific executive orders, the Department of Justice sent formal requests to over 40 states for copies of their respective voter lists and multiple states including California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Pennsylvania were sued by the federal government to force them to turn over their voter lists.
Federal law does require states to maintain accurate voter rolls and allows people in most states to register to vote at their Department of Motor Vehicles, but does not authorize the Department of Justice to participate in that maintenance.
In January of this year, a federal judge dismissed the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit seeking access to Californian's private voter information calling the attempt, "unprecedented and illegal".
"The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) seeks an unprecedented amount of personal information related to California voters from California's unredacted voting rolls. The requested information includes the names, social security numbers, home addresses, voting history and other sensitive information of nearly 23 million Californians," wrote Federal District Judge David O. Carter in January's decision to dismiss the Justice Department's demand. "The Department of Justice seeks to use civil rights legislation which was enacted for an entirely different purpose to amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data. This effort goes far beyond what Congress intended when it passed the underlying legislation. The centralization of this information by the federal government would have a chilling effect on voter registration which would inevitably lead to decreasing voter turnout as voters fear that their information is being used for some inappropriate or unlawful purpose. This risk threatens the right to vote which is the cornerstone of American democracy."
Later the same month, over a quarter of the U.S. Senate signed a letter demanding an end to the Department of Justice's nationwide pursuit of private voter information.
Tuesday's letter concluded, "[W]e insist that the Postal Service abandon this proposed regulation and return to its core mission of providing universal postal services to every American. The Constitution and federal law demand nothing less."
Your News Channel reached out to the U.S. Postal Service for more information and its response will be added to this article when it is received.
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