A whistleblower has warned that the U.S. Postal Service's new mail ballot system could create "potentially catastrophic problems" and accused the agency of pushing ahead with work tied to President Trump's effort to tighten mail voting rules before the November midterms. The disclosure, made public Tuesday, landed with Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who is now pressing Postmaster General David Steiner over the agency's new online portal for ballot information.
The timing matters because the Postal Service's final rule, published last month, is already moving through a legal fight that could shape how mailed ballots are handled in the weeks before voters cast them. A federal judge blocked enforcement of the rule last week, and the Justice Department has appealed, leaving the new system in limbo even as election officials try to prepare for the next round of voting.
Under the rule, state election officials would have to submit the names and addresses of voters receiving mail ballots, along with the unique barcodes on ballot envelopes, to the Federal Ballot Mail Portal. Once that information is entered, those voters would be treated as enrolled on their state's Mail-In and Absentee Participation List. The Postal Service says the system does not give it any role in deciding who can vote, keeping voter rolls, or counting ballots. Blumenthal does not see it that way. He said the Postal Service has built a system that would disenfranchise millions of Americans and put roughly one third of all voters at risk.
That clash sits at the center of the complaint. The whistleblower says the agency is flouting court rulings by continuing implementation work tied to Trump's executive order, while the Postal Service insists it is only handling mail ballot logistics. Those logistics could matter most in places that lean heavily on the mail: six states conduct elections entirely by mail, and four states plus the District of Columbia send ballots to all voters even though they still allow in-person voting. A CBS News poll in March found broad support for that method among Democrats, but much less among Republicans, underscoring how politically charged the system remains.
Trump signed the executive order in March and said then that "the cheating on mail-in voting is legendary," arguing that new rules were needed to protect election integrity. His administration has not produced evidence of widespread voter fraud. The dispute now moves to the appeal and to Blumenthal's questioning of Steiner, with the unresolved question being how far the Postal Service can keep building the system before the courts decide whether the rule can stand.
