President Donald Trump just forced the mail-in ballot fight back to its simplest question: if states want the U.S. Postal Service to carry millions of ballots through the federal mail system, why shouldn't they have to show their work?
The Postal Service's proposed rule would require states to provide voter lists and unique ballot barcode information before USPS delivers mail-in ballots for federal elections, and states that refuse could lose delivery for those ballots. From Reuters:
The Postal Service is proposing to require states also provide unique barcodes applied to the outbound and return ballot mail envelopes, saying it "will help determine adherence to federal law and facilitate law enforcement efforts."
On Thursday, Washington-based U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols declined to block Trump's March 31 order on mail-in ballots but did not say whether it was lawful.
A judge in Boston has set a hearing for Tuesday on a separate lawsuit filed by Democratic state attorneys general against Trump, the USPS, and others challenging the voting order.
The order also directed the administration to use federal data to help state election officials verify who is eligible to vote, required the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state's approved mail-in ballot list, and required states to preserve election-related records for five years.
A group of Democratic senators said the order illegally seeks to transform USPS "into an election administration agency with the power to determine who can vote by mail and to establish ballot specifications."
In that same piece, Reuters shared the following:
Trump, a Republican, has for years pushed the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud and has called for tighter rules on voting by mail ahead of the November midterm elections.
The rule follows President Trump's March 31 executive order directing federal agencies to tighten election integrity rules, including citizenship verification and mail-ballot safeguards.
Now comes the familiar thunder. California Attorney General Rob Bonta co-led a lawsuit with 22 other attorneys general to block Trump's order. Their claim is clean enough on paper: states run elections, not the president, not the White House, and not the post office. Bonta makes his position clear enough in his press release:
“Once again, President Trump is trying to rewrite the rules of our elections. But he lacks the authority to do so — full stop,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “The U.S. Constitution clearly gives States the primary authority over elections and gives zero authority to the President. This latest executive order is just another unlawful attempt to restrict voting, fueled by his fear of losing the upcoming midterm elections and based on wholly unfounded allegations of voter fraud.”
“Trump is lighting democracy on fire with every harmful, and hateful action he pursues. California will not sit idle while he tries to limit which American citizens can participate in our democracy,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “No one is above the U.S. Constitution — see you in court, Mr. President.”
“What we are not going to do today is sit idly by while a bully steamrolls over our democracy. The people of California and our nation grasp the magnitude of the threat to our constitutional rights and together, we will not let them slip away,” said California Secretary of State, Dr. Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D. “We will fight tooth and nail to defend our right to vote and the democratic principles our country must uphold.”
But California's position asks voters to accept a strange bargain; the state wants federal delivery, federal reach, and federal reliability, but it recoils when the federal carrier asks for proof that the ballots match real voters.
California mails ballots to all active registered voters. For state leaders, that's a symbol of access, but for everyone else, it raises a fair question about custody, verification, and how much trust a system can demand before it agrees to basic accountability.
A ballot sent to every active registered voter doesn't become suspicious by magic, but a system that floods the mail stream with ballots has to admit the obvious: more pieces in motion create more chances for mistakes, theft, pressure, and abuse.
Sacramento County gave the country a small but ugly warning last October when 99 stolen, unvoted ballots were found during a homeless encampment cleanup near Mayhew Road and Elder Creek Road. County officials said the ballots were voided and reissued. From the Sacramento County News, emphasis in the original:
Yesterday, the Sacramento Sheriff’s Office informed the Sacramento County Department of Voter Registration and Elections (VRE) that during a homeless encampment clean-up off Mayhew Road and Elder Creek Road, they discovered 99 stolen unvoted ballots for the Statewide Special Election.
These ballots originated from voters residing in the South Sacramento area, specifically along Gerber Road between Tiogawoods Drive and Elk Grove Florin Road.
Just to reiterate, these ballots were unvoted and were taken before the intended voters could retrieve them from their mailboxes.
The 99 ballots have been returned to VRE, where staff have voided them. Reissued ballots were mailed to voters today.
Um, whew?
The larger concern remains: if nearly 100 ballots can end up in a homeless camp before anybody notices, the public has every right to ask how often the system quietly fails.
There are also claims and videos circulating about homeless people being paid to sign completed ballots. I can't say what's been recorded is proof of fraud, but those claims provide stronger proof than any video of Bigfoot ever has.
Read More: My PJ Media teammate, Catherine Salgado, has much more on this situation here.
The existence of stolen ballots in a vulnerable population's camp is enough to justify tougher questions. People living in tents shouldn't become assets for a political machine, and ballots can't become loose paper in places where coercion, drug use, theft, and desperation are already part of daily life.
The legal battle is already forming. The NAACP has asked a federal court to block the USPS plan, arguing that it violates a 2021 settlement requiring the Postal Service to prioritize ballot mail. According to Reuters, the group wants the court to act before the June 22 deadline.
In its motion before the District Court for the District of Columbia, rights group the NAACP said the USPS rule would create a process "that directly violates its obligations" under a 2021 legal settlement which forced USPS officials to prioritize ballot mail and take "extraordinary measures" to ensure its timely delivery.
The group asked a U.S. judge to issue a ruling by June 22, saying the postal plan could "prevent millions of eligible voters from receiving mail-in ballots to which they are entitled."
"USPS has committed over and over to playing its part in democracy by prioritizing the timely delivery of mail-in ballots," Samuel Spital, associate director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, told Reuters. "And now for USPS to say we affirmatively will not deliver a ballot at all because it doesn’t meet criteria that we invented out of whole cloth, not only violates the settlement agreement, but also the historical role of the USPS in our democracy."
USPS has declined public comment, while the White House says the order is needed to protect election integrity.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston has already raised sharp questions about Trump's executive order while weighing whether to stop it before the midterm elections. Reuters reports that she's concerned with who gets to vote.
Talwani, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, zeroed in on part of Trump's order that she said posed a "fundamental question of who gets to vote."
That provision directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to compile and transmit a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state derived from citizenship and naturalization records and other federal databases.
But Talwani said that assuming the administration complied with federal privacy protections, it would not be feasible for the federal government to create a full and accurate list of U.S. citizens, posing a risk some eligible voters would not be included.
"What’s the harm if I say no one can use this list for the November election?" Talwani asked.
I understand the reasoning behind our system's balance of power, but a single federal judge in Boston has the authority to directly affect a national process? It's not like we've seen judges using authority they don't possess to make rulings that prevent President Trump from following through on campaign promises before, right?
The left and MSM, as the saying goes, I apologize for repeating myself, were overjoyed when President Joe “I can't remember how to leave the stage” Biden issued EOs as though he was handing out candy during a parade.
Democratic officials will almost certainly keep hunting for friendly courts because the fight isn't only about ballots; it's about whether a state can use a federal delivery system while denying the federal government the information needed to verify what it's carrying.
President Trump's actions are ticking off the right people. The way they're acting, one may think they're trying too hard to hide something.
Hmm.
California's defenders keep telling voters to trust the process. They forget that trust is easier when officials stop treating oversight like a personal insult. If the system is clean, voter lists and barcode matching should strengthen confidence. If the system can't survive that level of review, then the problem isn't Trump, USPS, or the courts.
The system is the problem.
The country has spent years being told mail-in voting is safe, secure, and beyond serious concern.
Fine: prove it, show the lists, match the ballots, track the barcodes, and protect the voter and the vote.
California shouldn't get to call that extremism while asking the rest of the country to keep pretending that blind trust is a security plan.
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