Spectrum News: Proposed USPS rule could restrict vote by mail
By Cassie Semyon
Nearly 30% of all votes cast in the 2024 presidential election were by mail. But voting by mail could be severely restricted if a new rule proposed by the U.S. Postal Service is adopted.
The proposed rule would block the postal service from delivering ballots unless states give the agency access to its voter registration data.
It echoes an executive order President Donald Trump signed earlier this year directing the postal service to process mail ballots in states only if the state has provided the federal government with a list of eligible voters at least 60 days before the election.
Democrats are painting the change as part of an unconstitutional plan by the Trump administration to meddle in races for Congress. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., who was once the top election official in California, is blasting the proposal as illegal.
“The president does not have the authority to make these types of changes. The Constitution is clear: Elections are administered by states,” said Padilla in an interview with Spectrum News Tuesday. “If the federal government is going to have a say in the time, place or manner in which elections are conducted, that falls to Congress, not the executive branch.”
Twenty-three Democratic-led states are suing to block the postal service proposal and the president’s executive order, but so far the courts have declined to step in.
Legal experts say if the new rules are allowed to take effect, the November election would be disrupted.
“There’s so many problems with putting it together in such a short amount of time, so I do expect that we’ll have a lot of legal complaints that will perhaps put it at pause, or USPS will consider applying those rules later,” explained Thessalia Merivaki, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
Merivaki said that such a rule change would also grant the agency unprecedented power.
“USPS now becomes the significant gatekeeper in the election system. It was from a partner to a gatekeeper that kind of shifts the relationship between the states and USPS,” she said.
Public comment on the proposed rule change is open until July 2, meaning if the USPS moves forward with the change, a huge public information campaign would have to be undertaken — and quickly — before the November election
“We have our work cut out for us – state officials, local officials, voting rights advocacy organizations, political parties, you know, both sides – out here to inform voters on what they need to know to participate in the November election,” said Padilla.
Another potential change that could affect the election in November is in the hands of the Supreme Court. The justices are considering whether mail-in ballots postmarked by election day but received afterwards can still be counted.
“My biggest concern is members of the military service members that are potentially overseas, their ballots not being counted through no fault of their own,” said Padilla. “If the Supreme Court rules the way we disagree with, then we’ll have our work cut out for us to inform voters to mail their ballot in extra early.”
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