US Postal Service Proposes Big Changes for Mail-In Voting
But WI Elections Commission members say proposal may not survive legal challenges.
United States Postal Service mailbox. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
The U.S. Postal Service is proposing major changes to absentee voting by mail, including creating new lists of which voters are eligible to do so.
Wisconsin elections officials say they’re not in a hurry to respond to the proposal because it may not survive legal challenges.
The U.S. Postal Service introduced a proposed rule Tuesday that would “apply uniform standards for the mailing of absentee ballots to and from voters.” Those include new requirements for the envelopes state and local election officials use to mail ballots and a “Mail-In and Absentee Participation List” that’s never been used before.
Under the proposal, each state’s top election official would add the names of voters eligible to vote by mail, “along with the barcodes associated with such individuals’ mail-in or absentee ballots.” The goal, under the proposal, is to “allow law enforcement officials to compare the total number of mailed ballots to the total number of received ballots to detect potential issues meriting further investigation.”
“Under this proposal, states would retain full control over who would (or would not) be able to vote by mail-in federal elections within each state, as states would control enrollment with the Postal Service for inclusion on the state’s Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” the rule states.
The proposed rule is vague on whether voters who aren’t on the federal list would be allowed to cast their ballots by mail, but it’s premised on President Donald Trump’s executive order in March that explicitly states, “the USPS shall not transmit mail-in or absentee ballots from any individual unless those individuals have been enrolled on a State-specific list.”
The Postal Service’s suggestions have raised alarms among Democrats and voter mobilization groups, who claim it’s an example of Trump trying to impede, restrict or eliminate voting by mail altogether. After his loss to former President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump has repeatedly made false statements about mail-in voting being rampant with widespread fraud. Court cases and state election audits have disproven his claims.
‘The courts typically intervene’
Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair-elect Don Millis, a Republican, told WPR he hasn’t even looked at the Postal Service rule proposal yet because “there are so many proposals that find their way into executive orders, or into lawsuits” that seek to change the way the state administers elections.
“We don’t have the opportunity to dwell on everything that’s proposed, because we know that the vast majority of proposals that come to us via either a lawsuit or an executive order or rule change actually won’t come to fruition, because the courts typically intervene,” said Millis.
Millis said that if the rule does survive legal challenges, the commission would make necessary changes in order to comply.
Several lawsuits against Trump’s March executive order have already been filed, according to an analysis by Derek Clinger, an attorney with the University of Wisconsin-Madison State Democracy Research Initiative. He said since returning to office last year, Trump has made eliminating or restricting voting by mail “kind of a common theme” in social media posts and press conferences.
Clinger said the U.S. Constitution delegates election administration to states, which leaves big questions about what legal authority the Postal Service has in the process. Those include whether whether the U.S. Postal Service can dictate what a state’s absentee ballot envelope looks like and what happens to a voter’s mailed ballot if they’re not on the federal list.
“The federal challenges that have already been brought raise really strong arguments that these changes would violate federal law,” said Clinger. “Because of all of these factors, I think there’s a pretty good chance that this does not go into effect by November.”
Current Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, said the proposed federal changes would impede mail-in voting and she’s not sure “why there needs to be a list at all.” She said it appears the rule proposal would require local post office officials to cross reference mail-in ballots with names on the list, which is “fine if you’ve got 50 ballots, but what if you’re the city of Milwaukee and you have thousands that day?”
“We already have election rules in every state,” said Jacobs. “You can order Wisconsin’s right now to see who’s an eligible voter. So, what is the purpose of this entire process, unless it is to slow down the process by which absentee ballots go through the mail?”
US Postal Service proposes big changes for mail-in voting, including list of eligible users was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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