The Ballot Box Has An Address: Trump’s New Fight With Mail-In Voting

Source: Silicon Bay Partners’ Staff with assistance from ChatGPT
Photo: Six delivery bar code sorter machines sit dismantled in a USPS facility in Portland, Oregon in mid-August 2020. APWU Portland Local)

Do as I say, not as I do: Trump and members of his family have voted by mail. The message? Apparently, mail-in voting is perfectly acceptable as long as it’s their mail.

Donald Trump is once again taking aim at mail-in voting, and this time the fight is arriving just as the 2026 midterm election machinery is beginning to move. On September 6, the Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a third time to allow new restrictions on mail-in ballots to take effect. The administration’s March executive order directs the Postal Service to impose new requirements, including voter lists supplied by states and unique barcodes on ballot envelopes, and would allow USPS to reject or refuse delivery of ballots that don’t meet the new requirements.

The administration says the changes are about election security and preventing improperly mailed ballots. Critics, including states and voting-rights organizations, argue that the federal government is attempting to interfere with election procedures traditionally administered by the states and that the changes could result in otherwise eligible voters having their ballots rejected. A federal judge in Massachusetts has now extended an injunction blocking USPS from enforcing key portions of the rules. The case is again before the Supreme Court, which has not yet ruled on the underlying legality of the restrictions.

And timing is becoming a rather inconvenient little detail. Some states have already begun distributing 2026 mail ballots, while others are preparing to do so. North Carolina, for example, has begun statewide mail voting. Election officials have warned that introducing a new federal screening system this late could create confusion because ballots, envelopes and election procedures are already in motion.

Déjà vu, 2020 edition

This isn’t Trump’s first confrontation with the Postal Service over an election.

In 2020, during Trump’s first presidency, he appointed Louis DeJoy as postmaster general. DeJoy, a Republican donor and logistics executive, embarked on a cost-cutting and operational overhaul at USPS just months before the presidential election, when an enormous increase in mail voting was expected because of the pandemic.

Among the most controversial changes was the removal or planned removal of hundreds of high-speed mail-sorting machines. USPS had scheduled 671 machines for removal in 2020, roughly 10 percent of the inventory, with 618 slated to be disconnected by August 1. The changes were accompanied by restrictions on overtime and late or extra delivery trips, contributing to concerns about slower mail service.

But there is an important distinction between what is documented and what has become part of the political folklore surrounding that episode. There is no established evidence that DeJoy personally ordered the equipment removed specifically to sabotage the 2020 election. DeJoy testified that he did not direct the removal of mail-processing equipment, and USPS said the machines were part of broader equipment-reduction plans tied to declining letter-mail volume.

There were, however, very real and highly visible consequences. Postal workers in several states reported machines being dismantled or removed, and workers in some facilities resisted the orders. In Washington state, workers actually reassembled sorting machines after DeJoy announced that his operational changes would be suspended. Reports also documented dismantled equipment being left outside in at least some locations.

So the image of millions of dollars’ worth of machinery simply being hauled out back and left to rust makes for a powerful political image—but it should not be presented as an established nationwide fact. The documented story is already remarkable enough: hundreds of machines were taken out of service during an election year, thousands of postal employees were dealing with operational changes, and the controversy became so intense that DeJoy ultimately suspended the changes until after the election.

Now, the Postal Service is back in the middle of the fight

The difference in 2026 is that the proposed restrictions are much more explicit.

Trump’s current order puts USPS in the position of determining whether certain mail ballots meet federally prescribed requirements before delivering them. The administration’s proposed system would require states to provide lists of mail-ballot recipients and would use a federal portal and barcode system to match ballots against those lists. A whistleblower has raised concerns about the system’s rushed development and its ability to handle errors, while USPS says it is prepared to comply with whatever the courts ultimately permit.

That is why the courts—not simply the White House—may ultimately determine how much of Trump’s plan actually reaches voters.

A federal judge has already blocked implementation. The Supreme Court previously allowed the administration to move forward temporarily on procedural grounds, but the administration has now returned to the Court seeking permission to implement the restrictions while the broader legal fight continues.

Will Trump succeed?

That’s the one question that cannot responsibly be answered yet.

What can be said is that the administration has encountered substantial legal and logistical obstacles. A federal injunction remains in place, ballots are already moving in some states, and the Supreme Court has not issued a final ruling on whether the administration has the constitutional and statutory authority to impose the new requirements.

If the Supreme Court ultimately permits the rules to take effect, they could materially change how some voters request and receive mail ballots in the 2026 election. If the injunction survives, the existing state-by-state systems will remain in place. And if the Court issues a decision close to Election Day, election administrators could be left scrambling to explain yet another set of rules to voters.

There is an irony here that would almost write itself if the stakes weren’t so serious: the man who has spent years warning Americans that mail-in voting cannot be trusted is now fighting over who gets to control the mail.

In 2020, the battle was over whether the Postal Service could keep up with a historic wave of mailed ballots. In 2026, the battle is over whether the federal government can impose new rules on those ballots in the first place.

The mailbox, it turns out, has become one of the most consequential political battlegrounds in America.