Could Trump’s mail-in ballot plan put your vote at risk?
episodePreviously titled “Voting by mail? You may need to act earlier this election” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 11, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Less than 90 days before the midterms, the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to revive a plan that would give the U.S. Postal Service a new role in how mail-in ballots are distributed and delivered. The administration says the rules would help secure elections, but state and election officials warn that changing the system after election preparations are already underway could create significant challenges for voters and election administrators. The big question, if you were a mail-in voter, could your vote not be counted? Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt.
What is the Trump administration asking the Supreme Court to allow for mail‑in ballots?
I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, August eleventh, twenty twenty-six. Sarah D. Wire covers national politics for USA Today and has been reporting on the legal fight and what it could mean for voters this fall. Sarah, it's always good to have you on. Thanks for having me. Let's start with what's before the court. What is the Trump administration asking the justices to allow?
So back in March, President Trump signed an executive order that involved the Postal Service in deciding who gets a mail in ballot for the first time. So the lower court put on hold that executive order. The Department of Homeland Security would be tasked with looking at states' uh voter rules and comparing them to immigration records. Then the states would have to print brand new envelopes to send out ballots in. And the postal service would look at each of those barcodes and compare them back to the immigration records. And this isn't a system that's been developed yet. It's still kind of in the early process. And like you said, we're less than ninety days out before the election.
So if an eligible voter is missing from one of these lists, would they know and would there be time to correct the error before their ballot is withheld?
That's one of the big unknowns because the process hasn't been completed yet. In theory, they would be allowed to check online or some kind of registry to find that out, but Every county in this country runs elections differently. There's also no way of making sure that they would have a chance to what's called cure the ballot, fix any problems.
Sir, the Justice Department says the lower courts acted too soon because the postal service has not finished writing the rules. Why did the courts step in before the policy was final?
You know, the states complained to the courts that you know elections can't be rerun. And so, you know, because they don't have the rules and we're so close to the election, they had no way of verifying that this would work. And if it doesn't work and millions of people cast ballots, that problem can't be fixed.
What did the lower courts say about whether the president has the authority to make these changes?
Yeah, this argument was about the timing of when it goes into place. It's actually not looking at whether the president has the authority to do that. The lower court says that's an argument for when this actually goes to trial. They said specifically for the states that are suing that it's too early to put this into place until it can be tested.
Election officials have warned that implementing these changes this close to the election could be disruptive. So what would they have to change or redo at this point?
I think a lot of Americans don't understand how much time goes into planning an election. Election officials start pretty much the day after the last one. And so a lot of plans have already been put into place. How ballots will be received, what machines to use, even what the envelopes look like have been planned months in advance. And we're getting to the point so close to election day where legally states can't go through and look at the voter rules and remove them because there's not enough time for people to you know, fix any problems that might be with their registration. And so the local election officials are saying that there's not enough time for them to implement these changes, particularly printing new envelopes that have these specific barcodes that the Postal Service would need to use.
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