Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.The U.S. Postal Service proposed new rules Friday that detail in part how the Trump administration intends to carry out its contested mail-ballot executive order — revealing a plan that, if it survives legal challenges, would create new barriers for mail voting and new burdens for election officials.Under the proposal, all states would be required to send the federal government a list of all registered voters to which they are sending mail-in and absentee ballots in key federal elections. The proposal appears to give the postal service new power to block delivery of ballots to people that are not on the list and allow the agency to refuse delivery of ballots that do not meet new federal standards outlined in the proposed rule.Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group and a former Colorado election administrator, said that the proposal would create onerous new regulations that could be difficult and costly for local elections officials to follow, especially in rural counties which do not currently have the technology to produce the required barcodes. Such systems cost thousands of dollars. Morrell said the rules represent an unnecessarily broad attempt to crack down on extremely rare examples of voter fraud.“This proposal would fundamentally change the rules to address a problem that is extraordinarily rare,” she said. “This is adding significant complexity and new administrative burdens that can add additional costs with little-to-no evidence the current system is failing.”Release of the proposed rules created widespread confusion among local elections officials unsure how they would work, and sparked broad condemnation from voting rights advocates and Democratic leaders who accused the Trump administration of trying to take unconstitutional steps to deny Americans their right to vote.“Tens of millions of eligible voters could be prevented from voting by mail if states do not fully submit to this new federal mandate being rushed ahead of the 2026 election,” said U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat who previously served as California’s secretary of state. “Serious and consequential questions remain over how this new list will work with the Trump Administration’s ongoing illegal effort to create a national voter list.”Friday’s proposed regulations, which require a 30-day comment period before moving forward, are the latest step by the Trump administration to overhaul election rules and impose unprecedented new federal oversight on the voting process.Since returning to the White House last year, President Donald Trump has directed his administration to take sweeping new steps to alter an election system he has accused, without evidence, of cheating him out of the 2020 election. The Federal Bureau of Investigation in January seized ballots in Fulton County, Georgia as part of a probe of the 2020 election. He has issued two executive orders that attempt to assert broad presidential control over elections, though the Constitution gives authority over elections to the states and Congress. Both orders were quickly challenged in the courts, which froze major provisions of the first order, ruling the president exceeded his authority.Release of the rules came one day a federal judge refused to block the most recent executive order on mail-in ballots because the Postal Service had not yet released its proposed new regulations. Another challenge to the order is pending in Boston, where a federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments June 2 in cases brought by voting-rights groups and a coalition of states.Counties face steep compliance questionsLocal election officials and experts said the proposal raised urgent operational questions about whether existing ballot envelopes comply with the new standards, whether counties and vendors can produce unique barcodes for outgoing and return ballots, and whether USPS could reject ballot mailings if voter data is missing, late, or mismatched.“I don’t know how the states would potentially interpret what they need to do in order to comply, and what happens if the state doesn’t?” said Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer for the Election Center, which represents state and local election officials. “Does that mean the postal service will reject the ballots? I don’t think so. The postal service will deliver any mail provided to them so what happens if a state doesn’t do it?” In addition, Patrick added, “I haven’t seen much here that is giving me much confidence this can be done by the fall without creating a lot of confusion and potential chaos.” Patrick said many of the Postal Service’s proposed standards are best election-mail practices, many of which she worked on for years. But turning them into federal mandates could collide with state laws and leave local officials with no clear way — or funding — to comply.“Some of these things are actually really good,” Patrick said, though election officials have been unable to adopt them in the past, and there’s no funding in the executive order to help.“Who is going to pay for it?” Kathy Boockvar, a former Pennsylvania secretary of state, said implementing the changes before the 2026 midterms would place another burden on election officials who are already underfunded and understaffed.“Especially in situations like this, where there is no funding being provided and no time for election officials and voters to absorb the required changes, this means that voters will bear the brunt of a poorly planned, last minute attempt to upend electoral processes,” said Boockvar, a Democrat. “You can’t just snap your fingers and change how elections are run overnight.”A technical rule with major implicationsAmong the most concerning pieces of the 20-page proposal, voting rights advocates and election officials said, is a new requirement that every ballot envelope — both the one sent to the voter and the one used to return the ballot — carry a unique Postal Service barcode. Election officials would have to send those barcodes to USPS along with voters’ names and addresses, allowing the agency to check whether outbound ballot mailings match the state-submitted list before accepting them. The postal service said the new rules wouldn’t apply to primary elections or to military and overseas ballots, but critics said it could force some jurisdictions to redesign envelopes, update vendor contracts, and build new ballot-tracking systems before the next federal election in November.Thad Hall, the election director in Pennsylvania’s Mercer County, said he couldn’t determine what the state would have to do to meet the proposed rules that would create uniform standards for using intelligent barcodes and a Postal Service election mail logo.“It’s not clear if Pennsylvania’s mail ballot envelopes would comply with the proposed rule,” Hall said. “While Pennsylvania’s mail ballot envelopes do use the USPS election mail logo, not all may be using intelligent barcodes.”Gideon Cohn-Postar, director of federal affairs at the Institute for Responsive Government, a nonpartisan think tank, characterized the proposal as a confusing attempt to comply with Trump’s recent executive order.“The executive order they are trying to fulfill is incoherent in and of itself,” he said.Cohn-Postar said the proposals could have the biggest impact on small jurisdictions that may not have the funding to comply. In a small jurisdiction of about 2,500 voters, ordering new envelopes costs about $10,000 — a significant expense that requires them to learn entirely new technology.For those jurisdictions, he said, the proposal could be a “big change.”“Right now, in the heat of the midterm election cycle, election officials should be given the space and resources to focus on critical work like improving cyber and physical security,” he said. “More bureaucracy only pulls them away from those mission-critical priorities.”Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.
