US Postal Service Begins Rulemaking Process for Trump Executive Order on Mail-in Voter Eligibility

The US Postal Service has begun the rulemaking process directed by President Donald Trump’s March 2026 executive order on mail-in voting. The order directs the Postal Service to work with states to determine who can vote by mail and to enforce eligibility by flagging or rejecting ballots from people not on approved lists.

It also directs the Postal Service to begin its rulemaking process for implementation by the end of May 2026.

The Postal Service announced a nearly $2 billion quarterly loss on Friday. USPS leaders have warned that the agency could run out of money within a year without help from Congress and the administration. Postmaster General David Steiner warned Congress in March 2026 that USPS could be out of money within a year without legislative action.

U.S. David Fineman told CNN that if the Postal Service decides to implement the order it will be a disaster because they do not have the resources or administrative infrastructure. A Postal Service official said in a court filing this month that USPS leaders and lawyers are deliberating how to carry out Trump’s order.

A USPS spokesperson confirmed they are working on a draft of a proposed rule. Trump’s March 2026 executive order directs the federal government to build state citizenship lists of eligible voters using federal data including Social Security and immigration records.

The executive order pressures states to cross-check their voter rolls against the federal lists and remove people the federal government deems ineligible.

The executive order calls for the Postal Service to work with states on a narrowed list of voters approved to receive mail-in ballots and to stop delivering absentee ballots to or from anyone not on that list. A White House official told CNN the goal of the order is to ensure mail ballots are sent only to eligible voters.

The same official told CNN that absentee ballots do not currently abide by the same secure processes that exist for in-person voting and the USPS rule will fix that.

The order raises the threat of criminal penalties for delivering ballots to ineligible voters. The executive order requires the list of eligible mail-in voters to be sent 60 days before an election.

In one of the lawsuits brought by Democratic-led states, lawmakers and voting rights groups, a district court judge has set a hearing for Thursday. Trump threatened to withhold USPS funding in 2020 as mail-in voting surged during the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump’s executive order last year on voting which mandated a proof-of-citizenship requirement to register to vote was blocked by the courts.

The Supreme Court is currently weighing limits on counting ballots that arrive after Election Day. Brian Renfroe told CNN that the National Association of Letter Carriers is very skeptical about its ability to implement the order effectively and is pressing Postal Service leaders on how to do so without politicizing the agency.

Jonathan Smith told CNN that it is not a postal worker’s responsibility to verify who can vote and who can’t vote and that politicizing the Postal Service takes away the trust earned from the American people.

The American Postal Workers Union launched a national TV ad campaign in April 2026 promoting the security and reliability of mail-in voting. Anton Hajjar told CNN that implementing the order is infeasible especially before the midterms and seems designed to make mail-in voting harder.

Kathy Boockvar told CNN that the order would be completely at odds with many state laws and puts extra burdens on election officials with no funding, no infrastructure and no support.

Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said his state is opting out of the program. In a court filing this month, a DHS official said it has not yet begun preparation of any State Citizenship List and has not decided which federal databases it would use. In one recent Justice Department filing, government lawyers described the USPS program as voluntary and on a state-by-state basis.

Conservative groups and a dozen Republican-led states have lined up behind the administration in support of the order. America First Legal wrote in a petition to USPS that the goal is to make sure the Postal Service knows that every federal ballot it delivers was sent by a lawful election authority to a verified voter and can trace every one of those ballots from start to finish.

In March 2025, at the behest of the Trump administration, then-Postmaster General Louis DeJoy granted the Department of Government Efficiency limited access at USPS.

Trump has nominated four candidates to the USPS board, which currently has only four seated members.