By Mel Wilson, NASW Senior Policy Advisor
Not unexpectedly, as we approach the midterm elections, the Trump administration is taking steps to significantly interfere with the electoral process —specifically as it concerns mail-in voting. Significantly, The President recently issued executive order (EO) titled Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections. The EO’s title may sound innocuous, but in the voting and civil rights communities, including the National Association of Social Workers, the order represents a dangerous step toward voter suppression and election manipulation.
More problematic, in a move to operationalize the Trump EO, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) recently proposed a new rule . The rule, if enacted, would dramatically alter USPS’s role in elections – changing it from a politically neutral carrier of election mail to assuming a major federal gatekeeper role in the mail-in voting process.
The rule would require:
- The creation of a new Federal Ballot Mail Portal (“Ballot Portal”), a system maintained by USPS through which election officials can submit voter information.
- States send the federal government a list of all registered voters to whom they are sending mail-in and absentee ballots in federal general elections.
- USPS will provide states with Mail-In and Absentee Participation Lists on or around the date of the election, containing the name and address of each voter to whom a ballot was sent, based on the lists previously submitted by the states themselves.
- USPS will refuse to accept and deliver ballots it deems out of compliance with the voter list requirements described above.
For a number of reasons, NASW strongly opposes the proposed USPS voting by mail Rule. Our primary areas of opposition include the fact that the rule is illegal, impractical, and impossible to implement without harming voters. Furthermore, both the executive order and the USPS rule are thinly veiled attempts to shrink the electorate under the guise of integrity. Rather than strengthening democracy – as suggested by the Trump administration— the rule will likely create bureaucratic choke points that make it harder for eligible Americans to cast a ballot.
Moreover, the vote by mail Rule will give anti-democracy factions ammunition to fallaciously challenge registrations, make false claims of illegal voting, and potentially disenfranchise communities of color – and other marginalized citizens – who are already impacted by restrictive voting laws.
The bottom line is that USPS Rules changes are not acceptable for the 2026 midterm elections or any other elections in the future. We will join other voting and civil rights organizations to prevent the proposed rule from becoming reality.
Please note: The proposed USPS vote by mail Rules Change is currently open for public comment posted in the Federal Register— under the title: Comment for Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Ballot Mail for Federal Elections. Comments should be emailed to PCFederalRegister@usps.gov, with a subject line of “Ballot Mail,” by 5pm ET on Thursday, July 2.
