USPS compares mail ballots to fake bombs, cremated remains

In its new rule to implement Trump’s anti-mail voting order, the United States Postal Service compared mail ballots to fake bombs and human and animal remains.

The comparison appears aimed at furthering the Trump administration’s notion that voting by mail — and perhaps voting at all — is a potentially hazardous activity that requires extensive security measures to be conducted safely.

When the USPS publicized its final rule on mail voting Friday, it justified the new restrictions in part by comparing mail ballots to replica explosives and cremated remains.

Plus, the USPS sought to characterize mail ballots as “sensitive mail” to further push for its implementation. The rule would make it more difficult for voters to cast their ballots by mail in the upcoming November midterms, if courts allow.

“Although ballot mail does not present precisely the same operational issues as cremated remains or replica explosives, it is unquestionably sensitive mail that raises unique operational considerations,” the USPS wrote Friday.

The USPS cited multiple federal laws, including one that establishes a trackable barcode system for human and animal remains sent via mail, as a reason to establish a similar barcode method for mail ballots. 

“Similarly, replica explosives—which, although not dangerous, also require special handling to prevent operational disruptions—rather than being prohibited from the mail altogether must be mailed in certain ways, including in–person presentation to a retail counter and shipment via Registered Mail,” the rule reads.

For mail voting, another handling specification includes voters giving their data over to what the agency calls a “Federal Ballot Mail Portal,” a move that’s alarmed voting rights groups.

The Bipartisan Policy Center calls mail voting “safe and secure,” a stark contrast to the rule’s seemingly fearmongering language in line with the president’s most recent mail voting executive order.

Friday’s rule, which voting rights groups swiftly responded to over the weekend, also played into Trump’s repeated rhetoric that mail voting breeds fraud when it claimed the new rules will ensure “election integrity.”

The rule is currently blocked by two separate injunctions at the district court level. Trump’s Department of Justice made its latest appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court Monday, urging for the rule’s quick implementation.