‘Unforgiving’ new USPS portal could reject 10,000 mail ballots due to a single error, whistleblower warns

A bombshell whistleblower report warns of serious flaws in the rush by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to implement President Donald Trump’s anti-mail voting order before November, including the potential for thousands of ballots to be rejected due to a single error.

“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,” reads the report, which was made public Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). 

It goes on to outline in detail how large numbers of voters could be disenfranchised, describing the USPS process as “entirely unforgiving.”

The report describes the whistleblower’s account as a “compelling warning of catastrophic failure which could derail the midterm elections.”

The report contends USPS has been secretly scrambling to build “new and untested” systems that under normal circumstances would take nine months to a year, or even more.

That has led to major problems with the systems’ technology, the whistleblower alleges.

“In the final days before the planned September 1 launch date, the Whistleblower is aware of multiple USPS officials describing the election ballot mail IT system development process as ‘a shit show,’” the report asserts.

Central to the scheme is the “Federal Ballot Mail Portal,” where states – under Trump’s order – would have to upload lists of people allowed to vote by mail. USPS has said it will refuse to deliver ballots if states don’t meet its standards, which also include new ballot envelope design requirements like the trackable barcodes. 

“Nothing close to the extent and severity of this new USPS system and attendant processes seems to have existed before,” the whistleblower report reads.

David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, called the whistleblower report “highly specific and troubling.”

“It is hard to imagine the USPS potentially disenfranchising all of those legal voters over a minor clerical error by postal workers or election officials,” Becker said in a statement. “If this is true, it could implicate the USPS or postal workers under federal and state laws that criminalize the act of interfering with the casting of a legal ballot.”

The whistleblower, identified as an anonymous federal official, expressed concern that the “slapdash” software development process means the portal “will almost certainly have significant operating problems.”

“The Whistleblower also raises grave concerns that the administration has hidden the high likelihood that the new ballot mail verification processes will result in major disruptions in mail ballots ever getting delivered to voters,” the report states.

It also notes that USPS failed to include the “zero-percent failure policy” in its rule that was officially published on Aug. 26.

Trump’s order and the USPS rule implementing it are currently under a temporary restraining order as legal challenges play out in the courts. That order allows the agency to continue work on the portal so long as states are not required to take action.

If allowed to move forward, Trump’s order and the USPS rule would have enormous consequences on the mail voting process relied upon by 47 million Americans in the 2024 election.

“Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all,” the whistleblower report reads.