- United States
- Calif.
- Letter
Block the USPS Mail Ballot Rule — Don't Let the Post Office Become a Political Weapon
To: Sen. Padilla, Rep. Chu, Sen. Schiff
From: A verified voter in Pasadena, CA
June 25
Reject the proposed USPS rule that would withhold mail-in ballots from voters in states that refuse to hand their voter rolls over to the federal government. This is not a logistics upgrade. It is a centralized national absentee voter database, tied to individual barcodes and names, under presidential control — exactly the kind of infrastructure that gets abused.
Postmaster General Steiner confirmed at the hearing that USPS would refuse to deliver ballots in non-compliant states. That is not a mail carrier's job. The USPS Board of Governors didn't even formally approve this rule — Sen. Peters had to drag that admission out during testimony. States like Minnesota have no statutory deadline for requesting a mail ballot, making compliance literally impossible. States like California and Oregon, which depend most on mail voting, are also the Postal Service's strongest financial defenders. Threatening them is self-defeating and punitive.
Senate Democrats were right to call this an unconstitutional attempt to turn USPS into an election administration agency. Stand with them. Demand this rule be withdrawn before it dismantles both mail voting access and the institution of the Postal Service itself.