What You Need to Know About the USPS Mail Ballot Rule

UPDATED SEPT 17, 2026

On September 14, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump’s attempt to use the U.S. Postal Service to restrict mail voting ahead of the November midterms. Under the blocked rule, the Postal Service would have been charged with determining who receives a mail ballot — suddenly changing the rules just weeks before Election Day and after mail ballots had already been sent out in numerous states. 

The rule — the Postal Service’s response to Trump’s March 31 executive order — has been the subject of ongoing litigation over whether it oversteps states’ constitutional authority to administer their own elections. If this rule had taken effect, it would have represented an unprecedented federal intrusion into states’ administration of elections. 

Where Things Stand

Here’s where the U.S. Postal Service mail ballot rule currently stands:

  • The Supreme Court’s ruling will be the final word on whether compliance with the rule is mandatory this election. 
  • States will not be required to submit lists of mail voters to a federal portal, and the Postal Service cannot refuse to deliver mail ballots because a voter is not in the portal.
  • The Supreme Court ruling does not bar states from voluntarily submitting mail-voter names to the portal, but a D.C. court decision does block voluntary participation. 
  • While the Supreme Court’s decision means states will not have to comply with the rule this fall, the rule’s longer-term fate remains uncertain. 

Unprecedented Federal Interference in Local Elections

Under the rule, state and local election officials would have been required to navigate a new federal process before sending mail ballots to voters. Specifically, the rule would have created the following mandates:

  • Election officials must submit lists of approved mail voters to a Federal Ballot Mail Portal that is not yet available, along with unique barcodes.
  • Election officials and mail vendors must print these unique barcodes on all outbound and return ballot envelopes.
  • The Postal Service — a federal agency with no election expertise — must refuse delivery of ballots to voters unless the envelopes include barcodes submitted to the portal.

This proposal would have applied to most mail voters across the country. While ballots from military and overseas voters are exempt under this proposal, advocates have expressed concern about whether it would in fact be possible to deliver ballots to these voters separately. 

A Compressed Timeline Designed for Chaos

The highly compressed timeline was a recipe for election chaos and confusion. Because states began mailing ballots to voters in early September, the Postal Service had only two to three months to build, test, and secure a new database — one that would store the personal data of the tens of millions of Americans who vote by mail. At no point did the Postal Service publicly state that the portal was complete or ready for election officials to use. 

In fact, a recent whistleblower report warned that the Postal Service was rushing out “untested” technology that could delay or block millions of mail ballots from being delivered to voters. 

Because U.S. elections are highly decentralized, the burden would fall on county and municipal officials. These overworked, resource-strapped local clerks would be forced to navigate untested technology, secure new printing vendors, and redesign envelopes during their busiest season. In Massachusetts alone, officials spent over $3 million on ballot envelopes that do not comply with the new rule. Small jurisdictions in particular — which are often short-staffed and underfunded — would be left scrambling to find new vendors in time. 

Voters would also pay the price. For example, a technical issue with the portal or a barcode-printing issue could cause the Postal Service to reject entire batches of outgoing ballots, disenfranchising residents through no fault of their own. In the event of a natural disaster, officials could find themselves unable to access the portal to make updates just as last-minute ballot requests surge.

A Flawed Basis for Investigations

The Postal Service notes that one potential use case for this tracking data is comparing outgoing and returned ballots to detect anomalies. This ignores how Americans actually vote and how states manage voter data. It assumes every ballot is mailed out to a voter and then returned by mail, and ignores the millions of voters who use ballot drop boxes or hand-deliver their ballots to polling places or election offices. In many states, in-person early voting involves giving voters a mail ballot at an election office to fill out and return on the spot. These ballots are either not returned via the mail or are never mailed at all.

This system would only create confusion and fuel conspiracy theories by raising questions about states conducting elections as they always have under state law. This aligns with a long pattern of the president and his allies undermining faith in elections and using false pretexts to call into question legitimate election results.