The American Postal Workers Union said Thursday it is deeply alarmed by a new U.S. Postal Service rule designed to carry out President Donald Trump’s plan to restrict mail-in voting, calling it an unconstitutional attack on millions of Americans who vote by mail. The union said it rejects the premise that the Postal Service needed to comply with the order at all.
The dispute matters now because the Postal Service began fleshing out its compliance plan on May 29, a day after a federal judge declined to block Trump’s March 31 order in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of national Democratic Party organizations. That order calls for federally managed lists of citizens the administration deems eligible to vote and says the Postal Service should send absentee ballots only to voters on lists states have submitted for federal approval.
For voters, the practical stakes are immediate. The NAACP sued the Postal Service on Thursday to stop the proposed rule, saying it would require state election officials to submit lists of people who requested absentee ballots for federal eligibility approval. In California and Wisconsin, election officials say ballot delivery times have already been slower since the Postal Service began making policy changes, raising the prospect that more Americans could see ballots arrive later in the calendar even before any final rule takes effect.
The Postal Service is moving ahead even as election experts say the plan is unlawful because states, and Congress to a degree, hold the constitutional authority to administer elections. That is the friction at the center of the fight: the agency created by Congress as an independent entity from the White House is preparing to help carry out a presidential order that the postal union and voting-rights groups say should never have been imposed on it in the first place.
The APWU said it and its members are engaged in efforts to defend the Postal Service’s independence and protect Americans’ right to vote by mail. A U.S. Justice Department court filing on Friday added another layer, saying the Department of Homeland Security is exploring coordination with the Postal Service to monitor mail-in and absentee ballot flows, identify anomalies that may suggest voter fraud or misuse, and generate authorized investigative leads. How many states would have to submit voter lists for federal approval before the changes are fully in place remains unclear, and the lawsuits now moving through court may decide whether the Postal Service can keep pushing ahead.
