Postmaster General David Steiner confirmed yesterday that the U.S. Postal Service would not deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to turn over voter lists to the federal government under a proposed rule tied to President Trump’s executive order on mail voting.
Steiner made the statement during testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday, directly answering a question from Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). When Peters asked if USPS would still mail ballots in states refusing to provide their absentee voter roll, Steiner replied: “Under our proposed regulation? No.”
The proposed rule stems from Trump’s March 2026 executive order directing the Postal Service to regulate mail-in and absentee ballot delivery. Under the proposal, states would be required to provide USPS with lists of voters who have requested mail ballots at least 30 days before ballots are sent under state law, according to the Postal Service’s filing with the Federal Register in June. If voters aren’t on the list, they would not receive a ballot through the mail.
Steiner defended the measure as ensuring “the right ballots are going to the right people,” but his testimony sparked immediate alarm among lawmakers, election officials, and Postal Service advocates who view it as a federal seizure of election administration authority.
Constitutional Authority and Board Concerns
During the hearing, Steiner conceded that the Postal Service does not have authority to administer elections, but characterized the rule as a procedural safeguard rather than election administration. “I would think that states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they think they’re sending out are the ballots that are actually getting sent out,” he said.
However, Peters revealed that the USPS Board of Governors did not formally approve the proposal, a significant development given the magnitude of the policy shift. Senate Democrats sent Steiner a letter demanding the agency abandon the proposal entirely, calling it an “unconstitutional and illegal attempt” to turn USPS into an election administration agency. The senators warned that the rule would create “a centralized national absentee voter database with individualized barcodes connected to the voters’ names under the control of the President that contains the voting information of millions of Americans.”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) directly urged Steiner to resist the plan. “Please push back on being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook,” she said during the hearing. “The Postal Service is one of the most important institutions in our country. Don’t taint it with the obsession of this one man.”
Election Officials and Advocates Sound Alarm
Election administrators across the country have raised practical and legal concerns about the proposal’s feasibility. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon (D) called the USPS proposal “extremely problematic on a number of levels,” noting that with 132 days until the general election, implementing such a system was unrealistic. Simon added that the proposal would conflict with his state’s election law, which has no deadline for requesting mail ballots.
Steve Hutkins, a retired New York University professor and leading Postal Service advocate, told Democracy Docket that implementation would be catastrophic. “It will destroy the Postal Service,” Hutkins said. “Its whole brand will be destroyed. All those states — if they can’t do voting by mail in California or Oregon because they won’t give over the lists, that’ll be the end of the Post Office.” He noted that strong mail-voting states are also the strongest defenders of the Postal Service institutionally.
Voting rights organizations have filed multiple legal challenges to Trump’s underlying executive order. A federal court in June allowed lawsuits challenging the order to proceed, and groups including the ACLU, League of Women Voters, NAACP, and others have argued the order exceeds presidential authority and violates the Constitution, which grants states primary control over election administration.
Trump’s executive order directs the Postal Service to issue a final rule by the end of July. The proposal is currently undergoing a 30-day public comment period.
Sources
- PBS News — Postmaster General David Steiner’s testimony to Senate committee on proposed USPS mail ballot rule, June 24, 2026
- The Hill — Steiner’s confirmation that USPS will not deliver mail ballots in non-compliant states, June 24, 2026
- Democracy Docket — Steiner’s testimony and reactions from election officials and Postal Service advocates, June 24, 2026
- Federal Register — USPS proposed rule on ballot mail for federal elections, filed June 2, 2026
- The White House — Trump’s executive order on citizenship verification and election integrity, March 31, 2026
- ACLU — Federal court ruling allowing legal challenges to Trump’s mail voting executive order to proceed, June 18, 2026
