WASHINGTON, D.C. — Postmaster General David Steiner testified Wednesday that the U.S. Postal Service would not deliver mail-in ballots under a proposed regulation unless states first provide their voter lists to the federal government. According to the Washington Secretary of State official Ballot Drop Box Usage reports, roughly a third of returned ballots are mailed via USPS.
“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner replied to Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) who asked if Postal Service will still mail their ballots in states that refuse to turn their absentee voter lists over to the federal government. “We would tell the state that we need the manifest in order to, you know, look, what we’re asking for.”
Steiner made the statement during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
Senator Peters described the proposed regulation as an effort to allow President Trump to hijack the Postal Service for political gain and turn it into a ballot verification agency that would control a master database of every American absentee voter.
“The President’s March executive order directs the Postal Service to create, quote, new mail-in absentee participation lists, which they will use to verify which voters are eligible to receive and cast ballots through the mail,” Peters said. “This would give the Postal Service unprecedented authority over American elections and is an unconstitutional subversion of the Postal Service’s duty.”
President Donald J Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 directing federal agencies to compile lists of confirmed U.S. citizens for each state and to impose new tracking requirements on mail-in and absentee ballots sent through the U.S. Postal Service. The executive order directs the U.S. Postal Service, an independent federal agency, to transmit mail ballots only to those on the verified list. States and elections officials who do not comply with the executive order will face criminal prosecution and the loss of federal funding.
Under the proposed rules, Peters said, states would have to submit each absentee voter to a new national database controlled by the Postal Service, comply with new federal ballot mail-in requirements or lose the ability to use mail-in voting, and submit to undefined ballot verification processes.
“Ultimately, the federal government will serve as the final arbiter as to who can actually vote by mail,” Peters said.
Peters also stated that the postmaster’s new rule would not only force states to hand over voter rolls, but it would disenfranchise voters in states with all-mail voting such as Oregon, or in our case, Washington state.
Postmaster Steiner defended the proposal as an operational measure to improve the secure and efficient delivery of ballot mail. He added that the requirement would allow the Postal Service to match the list of ballots a state intends to send against what is actually sent, ensuring accuracy.
“All that does, Senator, is make sure that we match the ballots that a state believes they’re sending out to what actually gets sent out,” Steiner said. “We then compare the two [list], [we will] make sure that the ballots that are supposed to be sent [by the state] get sent [to election tabulators].”
Steiner described the new policy as an extension of Kit 600, a set of best practices the Postal Service has recommended for years that involves unique barcodes and unique envelopes—Washington state currently follows Kit 600.
Senator Peters countered that best practices differ from mandatory requirements that give the federal government control over vast voter rolls and the power to decide which ballots get delivered.
“You’re telling these states, either give the federal government this information,” Senator Peters said. “Trust the federal government. Trust the Trump administration. We’ll take good care of these. And if you don’t do it, you can’t mail absentee ballots. You’re going to make a decision that people cannot vote by mail. That’s unacceptable.”
Peters then implied that the federal government may use voter lists for “nefarious purposes.”
“And the effort by this administration to nationalize elections and have the federal government having this information is incredibly dangerous precedent,” said Peters. “You can imagine sharing this information with the Department of Homeland Security and using these lists for a variety of nefarious purposes…. We need to protect the separation of elections from federal government and ensure that our state and local governments are the one administering their own elections.”
Overall, Peters argued the policy of the U.S. Post Office to require voter roll lists from the states for the purpose of mail-in voting represents a significant expansion of federal authority into an area he said the Constitution reserves primarily to the states. He contends that it creates a backdoor mechanism for the federal government to obtain sensitive voter data that states control and could disenfranchise voters in states that rely heavily on mail ballots.
🚨#BreakingNews Postmaster says USPS will not deliver ballots in states refusing to turn over voter lists. WA state suing, mail-in ballots via USPS in limbo!
Postmaster General David Steiner told the Senate on Wednesday that the U.S. Postal Service will not deliver mail ballots… pic.twitter.com/4qwkD99WGi
Washington state has already taken legal action against the Trump administration over the executive order. On April 4, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and Attorney General Nick Brown announced a joint lawsuit with Oregon challenging the order.
The lawsuit seeks to declare most provisions of the order unconstitutional and to prevent the federal government from implementing or enforcing it. Hobbs and Brown argued that the order harms states by purporting to override sovereign state laws governing the counting of votes and voter registration, imposing substantial costs on states to change voting systems and laws, and risking the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of state residents.
“As our state’s chief elections officer, I will not support measures that suppress Washington’s voters under the guise of security, especially when other measures being taken by this administration leave our systems more vulnerable to real threats from foreign adversaries,” wrote Secretary Hobbs in a statement following April 4ths presser.
The states contend the order violates the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause, which gives states primary authority to run their own elections, with limited exceptions for congressional action. They also argue it violates the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act by making it harder to vote.
California became the first state to allow no-excuse absentee balloting in 1978. Oregon pioneered all-mail voting for a federal primary in 1995. Washington implemented all-mail voting for its November 2011 election, followed by Colorado in 2014 and Hawaii for all elections starting in 2020. California, Nevada and Vermont later adopted similar systems.
Steiner maintained throughout the exchange that the Postal Service remains a nonpartisan organization focused solely on delivering mail accurately and efficiently.
“Well, we are the Postal Service,” Steiner said. “All we do is deliver mail. We’re trying to deliver it securely, efficiently, and accurately.”
Author: Mario Lotmore
