Trump Tells the Postal Service to Create a Voter List
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Can the President order the U.S. Postal Service not to deliver mail he doesn’t like? Add this to the list of, er, innovative questions that President Trump is posing to the courts. On Tuesday he signed an executive action to create a federal list of people pre-approved to vote by mail, while telling the USPS to refuse to deliver ballots from anybody who isn’t on it.
Democrats have already filed lawsuits, saying Mr. Trump’s plan tramples on the authority over elections that the Constitution gives to the 50 states. The USPS is an independent agency, and the Postmaster General is appointed by its board of governors, not the President.
“The Postal Service’s authority to reject mailpieces is defined by statute,” one suit argues, meaning Mr. Trump lacks the power to halt unapproved ballots.
The judiciary will sort this out, so hold the alarmism that the White House is stealing the midterms. The order does indicate, though, that Mr. Trump sees profit in continuing to talk election nonsense. As his approval rating gets ugly, he wants to be able to blame illegal votes for whatever happens in November.
Here’s the gist of Mr. Trump’s order: At least 60 days before a federal election, states would have to send the USPS a list of voters “to whom the State intends to provide a mail-in or absentee ballot.” The post office would maintain its own list of people “who are enrolled with the USPS, pursuant to a process specified in the rulemaking.” The mailman “shall not transmit” ballots “from any individual unless those individuals have been enrolled.”
How this is supposed to work in practice is anyone’s guess. Plenty of voters ask for absentee ballots closer to Election Day. What if somebody, two weeks before, gets stuck in the hospital or sent on a work trip? Mr. Trump’s order tells regulators to devise procedures for states to “routinely supplement and provide suggested modifications or amendments” to the USPS’s voter list.
That still sounds as if the postmaster is left in charge of deciding which ballots to deliver. Is the USPS prepared to play this role well, given how often it struggles to do its basic job? Imagine if states run into trouble updating the post office list: Maybe they will send ballots to voters anyway, in effect daring the USPS not to return them.
Mr. Trump speaks as if voting by noncitizens is so common that democracy is hanging by its fingernails, yet real investigations keep finding otherwise. Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen said last month that an audit of voter records identified 23 noncitizens. To compare, 602,990 Montanans cast presidential ballots in 2024.
Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said in January that a review of the state’s more than two million voters found “one confirmed noncitizen who never voted.” Another 486 people were unconfirmed, but she expected most of them “just need to update their information.”
Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry announced last fall that a review of voter registrations back to the 1980s identified 390 noncitizens, 79 of whom cast at least one ballot. The state’s 2024 turnout: 2,006,975.
Similar meager numbers have been found in other states, such as Texas, Georgia, Michigan, and Iowa. It’s good deterrence to go after any illegal ballots, no matter how few, and maintaining voter rolls is vital. Still, this is far from the kind of coordinated mass fraud that Mr. Trump conjures in the MAGA mind.
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Not to worry, the postal service only loses 15,000 letters per month.
POS/POTUS wants to kristi and pam to go online and change all democrat addresses before mail in ballots get sent out ...
The budget cuts hit the USPS but he wants extra work???? Down is up and up is down depending on the mad king's mood.
I still think vote-by-mail is a bad idea. But Russian Mafia tactics is the wrong way to address it.
colorado has done it for years and we're in the top 3 for election integrity. IMO people that think an electorate of 170+ million voters should file thru the republican concept of an ever decreasing number of in person polling places in a 12 hour period probably deserve a few life altering skull fractures and/or health emergencies while they wait in those lines to vote.
There is no way to certify the integrity of mail-in-voting. Changing the metrics and weakening the rules to hide obvious deficiencies can only provide a false integrity.
If we're going to play fast & loose with elections then go to vote via internet. Internet voting isn't any less secure than mail-in-voting. The certification requirements can be diluted to protect the integrity of the election.
If our identity can be verified sufficiently online to pay our bills, do our taxes, our banking and investments then a viable system of online voting should be developed immediately. It would solve a lot of problems, get immediate results, be infinitely cheaper and easier and even more secure. People could see their votes being cast on real time. And don't say it could be hacked. The system we have now can be hacked, is decentralized and inefficient...
Besides, illegally cast ballots are an urban legend anyway. Cheating by casting illegal ballots requires a huge conspiracy making it unworkable except on a micro local scale. Voter fraud is easy to detect and easy to prove and easy to prosecute. Casting an illegal ballot is a major crime at both the state and the federal level.
The real crimes are in campaign finance.
So, why can we not vote with our phones?
CRICKETS!
Face it, we know why! Olde farts in the gop do not want anyone else voting except for other conservative old farts in the gop...
you have no concept of what colorado does to ensure the election integrity of mail in voting. my advice to maga would be to seriously consider voting like the rest of non-maga voters, as if their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren depend upon the outcome of the next election.
personally, I'm done watching the maga demigod wipe his ass with the US constitution, and in the spirit of this country's 250th anniversary, I'll be looking for his supporters to attempt justifying their hero attempting to negate the 10th amendment in 10 words or less if the voter oppressing and unamerican save trump and maga act passes.
too many real americans have given their lives to preserve, protect, and defend our constitution, and since just one of those americans that sacrificed their life is still worth more than a million maga lives of those that won't, if the save act gets passed, I'd probably consider avoiding any places promoting anti-constitutional ideologies in the future where maga may gather on the same day and at the same time.
trump and maga don't get to cherry pick the DOI, the constitution, or the bill of rights. it's all of it or none of it, until it is changed by the protocol set forth within the US constitution ...
During the 2022 midterms, voters cast their ballots at just under 95,000 polling places across the country—half the number of locations available four years prior. The reduction follows a momentous 2013 Supreme Court decision, and the downward trend has some voting rights groups sounding the alarm ahead of November’s presidential election.
National data from the independent, nonpartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission shows declining polling place availability nationwide. A 2018 survey found more than 200,000 polling places in use. That number dropped to just over 132,000 in 2020’s report , and fell again to 94,793 physical polling places in 2022.
Yes, the shrinking number of polling stations is a real problem that needs to be addressed. But adopting less secure methods of voting and diluting the requirements for certification doesn't not address the problem of fewer polling stations.
As I mentioned above, a move to internet voting would eliminate the cost and logistical problems of voting. We can always lower the standards and certification requirements to ensure the integrity of elections.
How is it that Trump supporters cannot recognize that Trump is trying to steal the midterms?
most of them can't connect any dots that close together ...
MAGA is going to embarrass itself tugging on a thread that leads to the opposite of what they claim.