The policy introduces additional identification, reporting, and ballot-tracking requirements for state and local election officials.
Under the new framework, election authorities would be required to submit specific voter and ballot information through a newly created Federal Ballot Mail Portal before certain outbound federal ballots could enter the USPS mailstream.
The goal is to give the Postal Service greater visibility into ballot traffic while creating more consistent procedures for tracking ballots as they move through the system.
Election officials who refuse or fail to provide the required information could face a major consequence: affected ballot mailings could be rejected from the Postal Service network.
The move represents a substantial expansion of federal standards surrounding the handling of mail ballots as the November midterm elections approach.
“The Postal Service is amending the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual, regarding the transmission of mail-in or absentee ballots for federal elections pursuant to its rulemaking authority,” the rule states.
The policy goes further by establishing requirements for voters who use the mail to participate in federal elections.
“Any state that intends to receive mail-in or absentee ballots from individual voters through the Postal Service must ensure that such individuals have been enrolled with the Postal Service for inclusion on the state’s Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” the rule noted further.
The Postal Service changes come amid a broader effort by President Donald Trump to tighten election procedures and increase safeguards surrounding mail-in voting before the 2026 midterms.
Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” The order included provisions intended to strengthen citizenship verification and establish a national voter list that could assist the Postal Service in handling mail ballots.
The administration has maintained that the changes are designed to improve election security and ensure that mail ballots are distributed and processed only for eligible voters.
But the effort has already run into a major legal challenge.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Postal Service from implementing or enforcing the disputed portion of Trump’s executive order during the 2026 election cycle.
The injunction also prevents USPS from refusing to transmit mail-in or absentee ballots under the challenged provision while the court battle continues.
The dispute now adds another layer of uncertainty as election officials across the country prepare for the Nov. 3 midterm elections. In some states, early mail-in voting is scheduled to begin as soon as next month.
At the same time, the Trump administration is preparing a major expansion of federal election monitoring.
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon announced that the Justice Department plans to deploy approximately 1,000 federal monitors nationwide to oversee compliance with the Voting Rights Act and other federal election laws.
If fully implemented as planned, the operation would represent a dramatic increase compared with recent election cycles.
The proposed 1,000-person deployment would be nearly four times larger than the federal monitoring presence during the 2022 midterm elections. It would also exceed the 714 personnel deployed during the 2024 presidential election.
The administration says the expanded operation is intended to provide stronger oversight and ensure compliance with federal election protections as millions of Americans head to the polls.
Meanwhile, the SAVE America Act remains stuck in the Senate.
The legislation contains a broad package of election security measures supported by Republicans, but it has been unable to clear the procedural barriers necessary to reach a final vote.
Democratic opposition has played a central role in blocking the measure, while a small number of Republican senators have also declined to support efforts aimed at overcoming the Senate hurdles.
That means the Republican-controlled Senate has left Washington without delivering a vote on one of the GOP’s major election security priorities.
For the Trump administration, however, the congressional stalemate has not ended the effort to reshape election oversight before November.
Between the new Postal Service standards, the administration’s continued legal fight over mail-ballot requirements, and plans for an unprecedented federal monitoring operation, Washington is now moving toward a contentious midterm election season in which election integrity is once again expected to take center stage.
With early voting approaching and major legal disputes still unresolved, the fight over who controls the rules surrounding America’s elections appears far from over.
