Top U.S. Postal Service officials tasked with issuing new regulations on mail voting expressed concerns in internal meetings about how the rules they were drafting could delay or block ballots from reaching large swaths of eligible voters for the upcoming midterms, but the rules moved forward anyway, ProPublica has learned.
The revelations about the discussions, from someone familiar with the rulemaking process, come as a separate anonymous federal employee filed a whistleblower disclosure with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, warning that the new system is untested and error-prone, and could lead to mass disenfranchisement in the upcoming election.
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system → task → election
The whistleblower described the entire process as “secretive, rushed, chaotic, and fundamentally flawed.”
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whistleblower → describe → process
In a March executive order, President Donald Trump directed the Postal Service to create the new rules, including requiring states to give USPS a list of all voters eligible to receive a ballot in the mail and requiring USPS to use those lists to determine which ballots get sent to voters.
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ballots → direct → voters
USPS officials were tasked with crafting the details of how the new system would work, including the creation of a new portal for states to upload their voters’ information and the back-end software that would allow mail delivery sites and local post offices to track, and potentially block, ballots entering into the mail on their way to voters.
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sites → task → voters
Voting rights organizations, state officials and Democratic political groups filed lawsuits challenging the new rules, and a federal court has temporarily blocked the requirements for states.
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court → file → states
The merits of the new rule are expected to reach the Supreme Court before the November election.
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merits → expect → election
Even if the Supreme Court allows the plan, though, election officials and experts say that the new system could not be ready in time for this election, given that ballots for people who are in the military or overseas must be sent out this month.
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who → allow → military
During meetings in which top USPS officials discussed how to comply with the executive order, there was much discussion about the controversial nature of what they needed to do, according to the person familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
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who → discuss → reprisals
The focus was on limiting the impact to voters while also complying.
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focus → limit → voters
One repeated concern regarded how to avoid invalidating an entire batch of ballots if one voter among thousands couldn’t be confirmed as eligible.
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voter → repeat → thousands
Some in the meetings recommended trying to limit harm to voters by not rejecting the entire batch, according to the person familiar with the discussions.
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Some → recommend → discussions
Despite that, according to the whistleblower who contacted Blumenthal, the directive to reject entire batches if they included just one unverified ballot moved forward.
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they → accord → ballot
“As presently designed, if even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk-mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state — effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters,” the whistleblower wrote.
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whistleblower → design → voters
Election clerks raised similar concerns directly to USPS officials just days before the final rule was issued, at a mid-August National Association of Election Officials conference in Kansas City, Missouri, ProPublica has learned.
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We → raise → Topic
If you know more about the U.S. Postal Service’s efforts to regulate mail voting in the midterms, or other actions by the Trump administration to change how voting happens, please contact me.
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voting → know → me
There, an example was given of Maricopa County, Arizona, which often sends out more than 2 million ballots at a time in its initial mailing.
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which → give → mailing
USPS officials confirmed it was possible that one ballot with a bad barcode or wrong voter information within the more than 2 million ballots could delay the entire mailing, according to two people who attended the related committee meeting.
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who → confirm → meeting
The Postal Service has defended its final rule in court, stating that it does not intend to seize control of administration of elections and that the rule “need not and should not prevent a single voter from voting by mail.”
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rule → defend → mail
In a statement to ProPublica, a Postal Service spokesperson said the agency is carefully reviewing the Blumenthal whistleblower’s concerns and that USPS has spent months developing its system, in a manner consistent with court orders, and will soon provide instructions for how election officials can use it.
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officials → say → it
“Regardless of political party or perspective, we share a common goal: ensuring that Americans can have confidence that their election mail will be handled securely and delivered reliably,” the spokesperson said.
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spokesperson → share → confidence
Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to ProPublica that the process of building software to carry out the new mail ballot checks “is neither complex nor unique for USPS since the Postal Service regularly uses bulk mailing and intelligent mail barcodes for a wide variety of large customers.”
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Service → say → customers
“Under President Trump, the federal government is working to ensure safe, transparent, and honest elections,” Bis wrote.
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Bis → work → elections
Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who received the whistleblower disclosure, asked the postmaster general for detailed info about the plan in a letter this week.
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who → receive → letter
He told reporters on a call Monday that the new USPS rule puts all mail voters at risk, and he accused the administration of being “hellbent on changing the framework of casting ballots in this country, clearly for political reasons.”
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he → tell → reasons
Election officials and printing experts have told ProPublica that errors in the system are likely, given how difficult it is to design envelopes with a clear barcode for scanning and to keep voter information up to date.
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it → tell → date
Seemingly small details have yet to be worked out that could throw the entire system into chaos, they said, such as what file format to use when uploading voter lists and whether to provide mailing or residential addresses to USPS.
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they → have → USPS
“These are trivial things that create massive problems,” said Jeff Ellington, CEO of Runbeck Election Services, which prints ballots and ballot envelopes for counties.
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which → create → counties
Beyond that, he said, most of the counties in the country don’t have the type of barcodes needed to make the system function.
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system → say → barcodes
And the Postal Service hasn’t told local election officials how to design new ballot envelopes and get them approved by USPS in this short of a timeframe.
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them → tell → timeframe
The Blumenthal whistleblower said the idea that entire batches will be delayed by one mistake is especially concerning because of significant operational problems that exist with the portal that will contain information about eligible voters and the lack of testing of the system.
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that → say → system
The whistleblower is concerned about how, while systems typically have a known error rate, there has been no internal acknowledgment that errors will occur in the new mail ballot system, and instead the USPS has adopted a “zero-percent failure policy.”
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USPS → have → policy
The whistleblower also alleges that the administration moved forward with steps to create the new system during two initial injunctions from the court, which would have violated the court’s order.
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which → allege → order
USPS had stated when issuing its final rule that it was adhering to the injunctions and would not take actions to implement the rule for the 2026 election unless the injunctions were lifted.
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injunctions → state → election
Both the whistleblower and the person familiar with discussions about the executive order’s implementation said that the timeline for creating a sophisticated tracking system would typically be at least nine months.
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timeline → say → system
The whistleblower’s disclosure says that workers began to work on the system in mid-June and had only weeks before being given a Sept. 1 deadline.
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workers → say → deadline
The person familiar with the discussions said it was common for priority projects within USPS to have crunched timelines.
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projects → say → timelines
The internal goal, the person said, was to try to implement the new system by that deadline or to show why it couldn’t happen — which was typical of other directives the agency had faced in the past.
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agency → say → past
The whistleblower disclosure described confusion as the staff attempted to develop the systems without enough direction, within weeks, and without proper communication, and said several employees referred to the situation as a “shit show.”
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employees → describe → show
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