Photo: Samuel Corum / Getty Images News / Getty Images
The Trump administration has issued states a stark choice ahead of November's midterm elections: surrender your voter data to the federal government — or lose U.S. Postal Service delivery for mail-in ballots.
According to CNN, the ultimatum stems from newly proposed USPS rules designed to implement President Trump's March 31 executive order on elections. Under the proposal, states must submit the names and addresses of every voter set to receive a mail ballot, along with unique barcodes tied to each voter's outgoing and return envelope. States that don't comply risk having their mail ballots go undelivered entirely.
The NAACP and other civil rights organizations have warned the proposal could disenfranchise millions of voters. Black voters, elderly voters, voters with disabilities, and military personnel overseas rely disproportionately on mail-in voting — and would be among those most directly impacted if the rules take effect before November.
The legal resistance is already significant. Twenty-three Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits to block the order, arguing Trump has no constitutional authority to restructure how states run their elections. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read was direct: "This would deny eligible people the right to vote. Full stop. This is not in the president's power. It's absolutely clear in the Constitution — states run elections."
The executive order also directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile state-by-state citizenship lists of eligible voters, pulling data from federal agencies including Social Security Administration records and immigration databases — a system critics say is riddled with errors and could result in the mass removal of eligible voters from the rolls.
Some election officials see the USPS requirement as something else entirely. "We already told the Trump administration that they couldn't have our voter data," Jefferson County, Colorado clerk Amanda Gonzalez said, per CNN. "This is just a poorly disguised ploy to get it another way."
Sen. Alex Padilla of California, a former secretary of state, warned: "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."
There are also serious questions about whether USPS — already financially strained — has the infrastructure or funding to execute the plan on the timeline the administration demands. The portal through which states would submit voter data and barcodes doesn't yet exist, according to election service vendors already working with major jurisdictions.
Democrats are asking a federal appeals court to fast-track its review this summer. With November approaching, the clock is running.
The Black Information Network is your source for Black News! Get the latest news 24/7 on The Black Information Network. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app or click HERE to tune in live.