06/12/2026
As President Donald Trump is fighting to implement election integrity and security measures ahead of November’s midterm elections, a key executive branch agency is stepping up to the plate. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) proposed a new rule last week, aimed at pressing blue states to allow the federal government to audit their voter rolls and remove ineligible or fraudulent voters.
While the broadly popular SAVE America Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship in order to vote in elections to federal office, is on life support in the Senate, Trump issued an executive order in March to effectively implement the floundering legislation’s provisions via presidential authority, in order to protect the midterm elections from potential election fraud. Part of that executive order directs USPS to draft new rules for mail-in ballots. Under the proposed new rule, USPS would request from each state a list of voters who have requested to mail their ballots. The Postal Service would then provide each state with the exact number of mail ballots requested, each one linked to a unique, official envelope equipped with a serialized barcode.
According to the proposed rule change, published in the Federal Register, the Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMbs) will not only allow USPS to process mailed ballots more efficiently and effectively, but will also ensure that each individual ballot can be tracked as it is mailed. “Uniquely serialized IMbs facilitate the tracking of individual pieces of Ballot Mail to and from individual voters as the barcodes are scanned on the Postal Service’s mail processing equipment. The barcode simplifies data by consolidating information for multiple Postal Service identifiers into one comprehensive location,” USPS wrote in the proposed rule change. “Ensuring ballot mail is 'automation compatible' and meets mailpiece design standards means that ballot mail can be processed effectively on the Postal Service’s mail processing equipment without unexpected complications or delays in operations, and that the relevant barcodes can be scanned as the piece moves through the mailstream.”
In order to obtain mail ballots, state governments would have to provide their voter rolls to the federal government. “This provision will help determine adherence to federal law and facilitate law enforcement efforts,” USPS noted. “For example, the 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.” State governments that do not provide their voter lists to USPS will not have access to mail-in ballots.
Following the controversial results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his allies have repeatedly warned that mail-in ballots can easily be used in election fraud schemes. California’s recent jungle primaries have exacerbated concerns over the abuse of voting-by-mail. Republican candidates in both the gubernatorial race and the Los Angeles mayoral election saw their respectable leads evaporate over the course of the past week as state officials continued counting batch after batch of mail-in ballots. In California, all voters are automatically sent mail-in ballots, regardless of whether or not they are requested. Recent reports and investigations have already found that the state’s significant homeless population has been bribed to register to vote, despite not having home addresses for mail-in ballots to be delivered to.
In response to Trump’s executive order, a number of Democratic Party-aligned activist organizations filed lawsuits to block the implementation of the president’s election integrity measures, including the new rule proposed by USPS. Late last month, Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied a motion to block the executive order from taking effect, ruling that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that securing federal elections would cause them immediate or irreparable harm.
“The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws,” Nichols wrote. “Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.” The activists have appealed his ruling, so that the USPS’s rule change is not yet in effect.
𝑊𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝑆.𝐴. 𝑀𝑐𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑦. 𝑃𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑎𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑜𝑛 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑.
