Postmaster General David Steiner told a congressional panel Wednesday that under President Trump’s mandate requiring states to provide lists of voters who received mailed ballots, the Postal Service won’t deliver ballots in states where officials refuse to comply.
Democrats on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs slammed this as unconstitutional, saying that Congress, not the president, has the power to determine how the mail operates.
Following Mr. Trump’s executive order directing USPS to begin rulemaking on mail-in and absentee ballot services, the agency proposed rules requiring states to submit lists of voters receiving mail-in or absentee ballots.
Several years ago, the USPS began recommending Kit 600, which includes a unique barcode and envelope tied to outbound and return ballot envelopes. The proposed rule would formally codify these guidelines to “help determine adherence to federal law and facilitate law enforcement efforts.”
Historically, USPS recommended but could not enforce mail-in ballot standards. The proposed rule would make those standards mandatory, with noncompliant ballots returned to senders.
The public has until July 2 to comment on the proposal before the Trump administration can finalize it.
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the administration’s effort to “nationalize elections” and give the federal government such information is an “incredibly dangerous precedent.”
“We need to protect the integrity of the voting rolls. We need to protect the separation of elections from the federal government and ensure that our state and local governments are the ones administering their own elections,” he said.
Mr. Steiner said USPS sends every piece of mail that’s in accordance with its regulations, including mail-in ballots.
“I don’t have to direct the Postal Service to do that, because we do that every day,” he said.
All that the proposal does, he said, is ensure that the ballots that states intend to send get sent. USPS cross-checks the state’s voter list against the physical mailing and returns any ballots that don’t match.
He said this proposal is not something brand new. States like California and Oregon have followed similar practices for years, in which every registered voter automatically receives a ballot in the mail.
But Senate Democrats have not bought Mr. Steiner’s assurances.
All 47 wrote a letter to the Postal Service on Wednesday, calling the plan an “unconstitutional and illegal attempt to transform USPS into an election administration agency controlled by the White House and President Trump.”
“You’re telling these states, either give the federal government this information, trust the federal government, trust the Trump administration,” Mr. Peters said at the hearing. “We’ll take good care of these, and if you don’t do it, you can’t mail absentee ballots. You’re going to make a decision that people cannot vote by mail. That’s unacceptable.”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, also a Michigan Democrat, called Mr. Steiner a “pawn” in the president’s game.
“You are being used as part of a much bigger story that this president is trying to play out, where he does not believe elections that he loses are valid elections,” she said, urging Mr. Steiner to “push back on being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook.”
Referencing Mr. Trump’s claims of a stolen election in 2020, she said this proposed rule is “just another backdoor way of trying to influence this election, and to show the level of obsession that this president has.”
