Postmaster general says USPS won’t deliver mail ballots if states don’t give Trump admin voter rolls
Postmaster General David Steiner told senators that, under a new proposed rule, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will not deliver mail ballots unless states hand over their voter lists to the Trump administration.
“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner said during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday after being asked whether USPS would refuse to deliver election mail if states refuse to divulge their voter lists.
“We would tell the state that we need the manifest,” Steiner added.
Steiner’s alarming answer is yet more evidence that the Postal Service is following through with President Donald Trump’s sweeping attack on mail voting and breaking from its decades-long history as a neutral, nonpartisan carrier of U.S. election mail.
The USPS’s new proposal, which Postal workers have denounced, stems from Trump’s March 2026 executive order that, in part, demanded USPS only send mail ballots to voters on lists created and controlled by the federal government.
Specifically, the proposal would require state election officials to send USPS a list of voters who have requested a mail-in or absentee ballot at least 30 days before ballots are sent out under state law. If voters aren’t on the list, they will not receive a ballot. If implemented, it would effectively create a federal registration list for absentee voters.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told Steiner that the proposal would “coerce” states — particularly states like Oregon, where mail voting is the default form of voting — into providing the Trump administration with sensitive voter data.
“This is basically a back-door way for the federal government to get voting information that states control under the U.S. Constitution,” Peters said. “You’re telling the states, ‘Give the federal government this information — trust the federal government, trust the Trump administration, we’ll take good care of these — and if you don’t do it, you can’t mail absentee ballots.’”
“You are going to make a decision that people cannot vote by mail,” the senator added. “That’s unacceptable.”
Steiner’s admission Wednesday conflicted with a separate rule the USPS adopted under his watch last year, which stated that the independent agency “does not administer elections, establish the rules or deadlines that govern elections, or determine whether or how election jurisdictions utilize the mail.”
Steiner defended the proposed rule by claiming that it mandates “Kit 600,” a series of best practices that USPS distributes to election officials who send election documents through the mail.
Peters, however, said that Kit 600 was entirely separate from USPS’s new proposal, noting that there’s a clear difference between recommended best practices and a punitive mandate.
Sen. Margaret Hassan (D-N.H.) urged Steiner to “immediately” withdraw the rule, calling it “blatantly illegal” and designed to “reduce participation in our democracy.”
In response to a question from Hassan, Steiner said the Postal Service would comply if a court blocks the proposal.
Multiple federal courts are hearing lawsuits against Trump’s order and the USPS’s new regulation.
A federal judge in Massachusetts last week allowed pro-voting groups and Democratic state attorneys general to proceed in challenging Trump’s order, which she said would directly harm states’ ability to carry out elections this November if it’s fully implemented.
Though Steiner asserted that USPS is nonpartisan and has no role in administering elections, he criticized a recent error with mail ballots in Maryland’s primary election during the hearing.
Steiner asserted that the error would not have occurred if the proposed rule had been in effect. However, the mistake was caused by a printing error that the proposal would not have prevented. His criticism echoed claims from Trump and his allies, who used the situation in Maryland to further attack mail voting.