Ep 116 - Return to Sender: Trump’s Postal Power Grab

For years, progressives have warned that authoritarianism in America probably would not arrive with tanks in the streets or an announcement that elections had been canceled. It would come through executive orders, agency regulations, government databases, threats of prosecution and a president relentlessly testing whether Congress, the courts or anyone else could still tell him no. Donald Trump’s attempt to seize control of mail voting through the United States Postal Service is one of the clearest examples yet that those warnings were not exaggerated.

Trump’s postal plan would place a new federal checkpoint between eligible voters and the ballots their states have authorized them to receive.

The Supreme Court’s latest decision did not declare Trump’s plan constitutional. It did not give the president authority to rewrite election law. It did not approve a federal database of mail voters or authorize USPS to reject lawful ballots. What the Court said, by a six-to-three vote, was that a group of Democratic-led states had sued too early. When their lawsuit began, Trump’s executive order had directed federal agencies to build a new system, but USPS had not yet completed the regulation that would impose it.

That distinction matters, but it should not be confused with vindication. The Court treated Trump’s order as an internal instruction to federal officials rather than a rule that immediately bound the states. The majority said the states would be free to challenge the system once USPS took concrete action that caused them harm. In plain English, the Court did not say Trump’s plan was legal. It said the states arrived at the courthouse before the machinery was finished.

The machinery is finished now. USPS has issued its final regulation. And a separate nationwide injunction still prevents the Postal Service from implementing or enforcing it for the November election. So, as of this writing, nothing has changed for voters. Mail-voting procedures remain governed by existing state law, and voters should continue following instructions from their state and county election offices.

But the story gets considerably uglier. The remaining injunction did not merely prohibit USPS from enforcing Trump’s system. Judge Indira Talwani explicitly ordered the Postal Service not to complete the rulemaking for November. USPS completed it anyway. The administration argued that publishing a finished regulation was acceptable because it promised not to enforce the rule while the injunction remained in place. Essentially: Yes, we finished building the thing you ordered us not to finish building, but we promise not to turn it on just yet.

Talwani rejected that argument and ruled that the government had violated her order. She did not impose sanctions or hold officials in contempt, but she made clear that the defendants could not credibly claim they misunderstood what the injunction prohibited. The completed regulation is now sitting behind one remaining legal barrier, positioned for rapid implementation if the administration succeeds in knocking that barrier down.

This is where Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent becomes especially important. She warned about a procedural trap in election litigation: Sue before a policy is finalized, and courts may say the threatened injury is too speculative. Wait until the policy is finalized, and courts may decide the election is too close to permit another change. Too early today. Too late tomorrow. And somewhere inside that narrowing window, the government gets what it wanted.

The danger is not theoretical. Election deadlines are arriving. Military and overseas ballots must begin moving in some states within days. Counties have already selected printers, contracted with vendors, approved envelope designs and configured election-management software. A new nationwide system cannot be introduced, integrated and properly tested with the same ease as updating an app on your phone.

And Trump’s proposed system is far more than a new envelope design. State and local election offices would have to enter voters into a federal postal portal. Each voter would be connected to unique barcodes assigned to both the outgoing ballot envelope and the return envelope. USPS would review outgoing ballot mailings before accepting them, checking not only the physical mailpieces but also whether the required information had been entered into its system.

Imagine an eligible Pennsylvania voter named Jane. She is properly registered, requests her ballot on time and follows every state instruction. Her county confirms that she is entitled to vote by mail. But a county employee mistypes her address. A vendor pairs her name with the wrong barcode. A software error prevents the record from uploading correctly. Jane’s ballot could encounter a federal obstacle even though Jane did absolutely nothing wrong.

The administration insists USPS would not be deciding whether Jane is eligible to vote. Pennsylvania would still make that determination, while USPS would merely verify that the county followed the new mailing procedures. That distinction is technically real, but it will not restore Jane’s vote if her ballot never reaches her because someone else made a clerical error.

Once the address, postage, envelope and barcode are correct, the remaining question is not whether USPS can physically carry the letter. The question is whether Jane and her ballot were properly entered into a federal system. Requiring a machine-readable envelope is postal administration. Requiring a state to federally enroll a voter before carrying that envelope is election administration wearing a postal uniform.

Now multiply Jane by tens of millions of voters. Multiply her county by thousands of election jurisdictions using different laws, deadlines, computer systems, printers and mail vendors. Add misspelled names, changed addresses, recently registered voters, recently naturalized citizens, replacement ballots, duplicate barcodes, damaged codes, portal outages and incompatible software. Every new connection creates another place where an entirely eligible voter can be harmed by somebody else’s mistake.

Nobody needs to forge a ballot. Nobody needs to hack a voting machine. Nobody needs to stuff a drop box. A spreadsheet mismatch can do the job.

There is also a basic constitutional question that the Supreme Court has not answered: Where did Donald Trump get this power? The Elections Clause gives state legislatures the initial authority to establish the times, places and manner of congressional elections. Congress may make or alter those rules. The president is not included in that grant of authority.

Presidents may direct federal officials to exercise powers Congress has already granted. They cannot manufacture new powers by signing an executive order with an impressive title. Trump could have asked Congress to enact these restrictions. He could have made his case publicly, assembled the votes and signed the resulting legislation. He did not. Instead, he attempted to use the Postal Service’s legitimate authority over mail processing as a back door to presidential authority over elections.

USPS certainly may regulate postage, dimensions, addresses, processing standards and dangerous or legally prohibited materials. Ballots are not contraband. A properly addressed and properly paid envelope containing a lawful ballot does not become physically undeliverable because a county failed to enter the voter’s information into a new federal portal. Calling that condition a “mailing standard” does not magically prevent it from functioning as an election rule.

The plan becomes even more revealing when we test its logic. Suppose a state authorized voters to download blank ballots securely, print them and return the completed paper ballots through approved channels. Limited versions of electronic ballot delivery already exist for military personnel, overseas citizens and certain voters with disabilities. If the blank ballot travels electronically, USPS cannot stop its outbound delivery because there is no outbound ballot in the mail.

Take it one step further. The county could theoretically mail the voter only the instructions, declaration materials, secrecy sleeve and empty return envelope. Under the regulation’s current definition, outbound federal ballot mail must contain a physical ballot. Separating the electronic ballot from the physical return materials appears to remove the outgoing package from that particular category.

That is not a proven loophole or advice to election officials. State law might not authorize it. A broader downloadable-ballot system would require authentication, accessibility protections, scanner compatibility, duplicate-vote safeguards and accommodations for voters without reliable internet access or printers. USPS could also rewrite or reinterpret its regulation.

But the thought experiment exposes the policy’s true character. If separating the ballot from the envelope substantially defeats the outgoing enforcement mechanism, this was never primarily about whether the Postal Service could process the mail. It was about controlling how states distribute ballots.

The system also creates federal records linking voters’ names, addresses, mail-ballot participation and unique outgoing and return-envelope identifiers. Those barcodes do not reveal how anyone voted, and election offices already maintain records showing who requested mail ballots. The concern is the creation of a new centralized federal system—its accuracy, access, retention and potential use by an administration simultaneously assembling citizenship lists and threatening investigations of election officials.

This is how the authoritarian slide works in practice. Authority is claimed rather than granted. Agencies are repurposed. Personal information is centralized. Local officials are threatened. Judicial restraints are tested or disregarded. Each escalation is presented as a minor technical adjustment while presidential power expands underneath it.

Trump’s plan may still fail. The remaining injunction may hold. Courts may strike down the regulation. November may proceed without the system ever taking effect. I sincerely hope all of those things happen.

But an attempted abuse of power does not stop being authoritarian because another institution manages to block it. Institutional guardrails are not magical. They work only when officials obey lawful orders, courts act in time and the public recognizes what is happening before the machinery is switched on.

Progressives were not exaggerating. We were describing the road—and Donald Trump just tried to put the United States Postal Service in the driver’s seat.

SOURCES

Trump v. California — Supreme Court decision lifting one injunction while leaving the plan’s underlying legality unresolved — https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/26a124_hgci.pdf

Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections” — Trump’s March 31 directive concerning citizenship lists, prosecutions and USPS ballot-mail regulations — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/03/2026-06601/ensuring-citizenship-verification-and-integrity-in-federal-elections

USPS Final Rule, “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections” — Final requirements for ballot envelopes, barcodes, voter information and the Federal Ballot Mail Portal — https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-17238.pdf

USPS Proposed Rule, “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections” — Detailed description of the proposed participation lists, voter data and outgoing-ballot verification process — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/02/2026-10968/ballot-mail-for-federal-elections

League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump — August 11 nationwide preliminary injunction blocking USPS implementation for the November election — https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/massachusetts/madce/1%3A2026cv11549/298449/183

Reuters — Judge Talwani rules that USPS violated her injunction by completing the mail-ballot regulation, while declining to impose additional relief — https://www.reuters.com/world/judge-chides-us-postal-service-over-mail-in-voting-rule-wont-block-it-2026-08-25/

Associated Press — Explanation of what the Supreme Court ruling changes, what remains blocked and why election officials warn of chaos — https://apnews.com/article/3780d57190a317e63fd19583c8ebb143

Associated Press — Examination of the USPS regulation, its logistical demands and the approaching military and overseas-ballot deadlines — https://apnews.com/article/b4b9ef095b4d6bceab18adbb34814640

Elias Law Group — Renewed legal challenge filed after USPS finalized its ballot-mail regulation — https://elias.law/press-release/elias-law-group-asks-federal-court-to-block-trumps-mail-ballot-rule-before-voting-begins/

USPS Privacy Act Notice — Proposed federal records system connecting voters, addresses and unique outgoing and return ballot-envelope identifiers — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/17/2026-14508/privacy-act-of-1974-system-of-records

39 U.S.C. §403 — USPS obligations concerning nationwide service and undue or unreasonable discrimination among mail users — https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/403

U.S. Election Assistance Commission — Overview of electronic ballot-delivery systems used for qualifying military, overseas and disabled voters — https://www.eac.gov/election-technology/estep-program/electronic-ballot-delivery-systems

Pennsylvania Department of State — Accessible remote ballot system in which qualifying voters receive electronic ballot access and mailed return materials — https://www.pa.gov/agencies/vote/voter-support/accessible-voting/accessible-remote-ballot-marking-solution-for-mail-voting