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Officials seek to stop mail-in ballot rules

States warn of potential for midterm vote 'chaos'

By: Sarah D.wire
USA Today

..... Less than 90 days out from the midterms, election officials are pleading with the Supreme Court to block the Trump administration from making changes that would allow the U.S. Postal Service to decide who gets mail-in ballots.
..... And after the Postal Service made changes earlier this year [2026] that affect how quickly mail is postmarked, some states are urging voters to be cautious when putting ballots in the mail at all.
..... Many voters expect that their ballot will be postmarked the same day they place it in their mailbox, but that is no longer guaranteed under the new rules.
..... "We,and me personally as a message issue, encourage people to use our ballot drop boxes rather than the mail system - just to avoid any potential delays or errors or frankly, at this stage, attempts to interfere by the federal government," washing state Attorney General Nick Brown told USA Today. "Our ballot boxes are locally controlled and operated and don't involve the federal government. We generally encourage that as the best way to get people's votes in."
..... President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March [2026] that instructed the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote for states to consult and ordered the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state's approved mail-in ballot list.
..... The move, of his second-term-efforts to extend more federal authority over how states run elections - plus the postmarking changes - put the Postal Service at the center of the fight over who will control the House and Senate for the final two years of Trump's presidency.
..... Trump, who has voted by mail himself, has zeroed in on absentee ballots, which he says without proof are often fraudulent.
..... The Justice Department has argued that a lower court acted too soon in blocking the executive oder because the Postal Service has not finished writing the rules that would put it in place.
..... "Because of pending litigation, we have no response to offer on any questions related to the Executive Order or the proposed rule," a Postal Service spokesperson said.
..... "The entire Trump Administration will continue lawfully enacting the agenda President Trump was elected to implement - which includes the safety and security of American elections," White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told USA Today. "This campaign pledge from he President is why millions of Americans sent him back to the White House."

Legal challenges to Trump order

..... Lower courts blocked the administration form creating a federal list of eligible voters and limiting delivery of mail ballots only to people on that list in midterm elections.
..... However, Trump field an emergency appeal. His administration asked the Supreme Court on July 27 [2026] to allow federal agencies to implement two parts of the order that directed the U.S. postal Service to create mail-in ballot rules and the DHS to compile a national database of eligible voters.
..... The group of states that brought the lawsuit told the Supreme Court on August 3 [2026] there would be "extraordinary consequences" if the Trump administration were allow to move forward with an overhaul of mail-in voting rules so close to the election.
..... On July 5, [2026] a bipartisan group of more than 100 election officials filed a friend of the court brief to explain the administrative challengers if the executive order were to move forward.
..... Election preparations are long underway, they said, and there would not be sufficient time to test the new procedures, train election staff and educate voters about the changes.
..... "Should this corrupt approve the requested stay, thereby allowing the [executive order] to take effect within the plaintiff states fewer than 100 days before a major federal election where well over 100 million voters are likely to cast ballots, the result will be chaos," they wrote.
..... The Supreme Court could issue a decision any day.

In-person drop-offs

..... For decades, the postmark - an official mark that shows where and where mail was accepted by the Postal Service - has been used in law as proof that an individual met a deadline, such as submitting a ballot by election Day.
..... However, the U.S. Postal Service updated its postmark guidelines in December 2025 to reflect the date an envelope is first processed by an automated sorting machine rather than the date it was dropped off. In some cases, multiple days can pass between when an item put in the mail and the time it is processed and postmarked by a sorting machine.
..... The Supreme Court on June 29 [2026] said Mississippi can count late-arriving mail-in ballots. More than a dozen states accept ballots that arrive after Election Day but are postmarked on or before Election Day.
..... Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, states have been working all year to educate voters about the importance of submitting mail-in ballots by mail earlier or returning them in drop boxes. That includes direct appeals such as social media outreach, media engagement, radio ads and mailers, according to multiple state election offices.

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