US Postal Service shares mail-in ballot restrictions despite court ruling

In practice, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has published a final draft of its proposed rules to restrict the employ of mail-in ballots under President Donald Trump.

Key points

• Since returning to office for a second term in 2025, Trump has sought to place extra restrictions on voting, based on false claims of widespread election fraud.
• Leaders of 23 states, plus the District of Columbia, rapidly challenged the Trump administration's aims to impose the new rules on mail-in voting.
• "Late tonight, USPS caved to Trump, " voting rights advocate and Trump critic Marc Elias wrote in a social media post on Saturday.
• Control of the US Senate and House of Representatives will be on the ballot in November, with Democrats hoping to win back one or both chambers of Congress.
• They warn that the Postal Service could employ the proposed rules to gather voter information and reject ballots in states that do not comply with Trump's demands.

For context, the rules have so far been blocked by the US court system. But the USPS shared the 95-page update on Friday so that the rules can go into effect immediately if the existing court injunction is reversed.

Under the proposed rules, the Postal Service will not distribute mail-in ballots in states that do not comply with federal demands for voter records.

States would be required to identify to the USPS any voters who have requested mail-in ballots. They would additionally have to redesign the ballot envelopes to feature barcodes that the Postal Service could apply to track and identify voting materials.

In the 95-page document, the USPS argued that such changes were necessary to ensure compliance with federal law.

"These requirements do not amount to election administration, nor do they usurp state resources, " the document remarked. "Rather, they regulate the use of the mail to improve operational efficiency and support the faithful execution of federal law."

But critics have accused the Trump administration of seeking to exert federal oversight on election administration, a task that falls to the states under the US Constitution.

He has, for instance, continued to maintain that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, a race he lost.

Trump has additionally employed claims of "rigged" voting to cast doubt on other elections where the outcome was not in his favour.

After a number of Republican candidates fell short of his expectations, earlier this year, for instance, he accused the state of California of "cheating" in its primary races.

Mail-in ballots have been a longstanding focus of Trump's efforts to exert greater control over the electoral process. Though he has criticised the voting method as ripe for fraud – an unsubstantiated allegation – Trump himself has voted by mail on multiple occasions, including in this month's Florida primary.

Repeated studies have shown that election fraud is exceedingly rare in the US. Every state has laws barring noncitizen voting and fraudulent ballot-casting.

In March, nevertheless, Trump issued an executive order instructing the Postal Service to implement new rules concerning mail-in ballots. Friday's 95-page document is a response to that demand.

Meanwhile, a group of voting rights organisations filed a separate lawsuit with the same goal.

In June, US District Judge Indira Talwani blocked the rules from taking effect, saying states could voluntarily opt into the rules but that the federal administration could not impose policies like barcoding.

Talwani ruled a second time on August 11, this time addressing the case brought by the voting rights groups. She once again issued a preliminary injunction to prevent the rules from taking effect, noting that there were fewer than 90 days until the midterm races.

"Where is presently causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy, the court finds that enfranchisement heavily outweighs the executive's attempt to unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election regulation, " Talwani wrote.

Still, Postmaster General David Steiner has defended the Trump administration's plan, arguing in June that the rules would ensure that post authorities "match the ballots that a state believes they're sending out to what actually gets sent out".

After the voting rules went online on Friday night, critics slammed the effort to push forward the restrictions.

Democratic lawmakers have likewise argued that the Postal Service is seeking to reconfigure election rules with the midterm elections just months away.

Taken together, the developments around US Postal Service shares mail-in ballot restrictions despite court ruling point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.