The Untold Origins of Trump's Plan to Sharply Restrict Mail-In Voting

The piece traces how the Trump White House crafted a plan to sharply restrict mail-in voting, beginning with a discarded, extreme proposal to require every ballot be sent by certified mail - forcing voters to be home to sign and effectively halting routine absentee voting. After postal officials rejected that as unworkable, the administration pushed an executive order that would have turned Postal Service employees into gatekeepers: mandating envelope redesigns with scannable barcodes, requiring states to hand over voter-rolls for prematching, and empowering workers to reject ballots for mismatches, outdated information, or unreadable barcodes. The order also oddly placed coordination authority with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who lacks Postal Service oversight, and was drafted with limited Postal Service input.

Postal leaders and career staff warned the measures were impractical and risked mass disenfranchisement; they tried to craft minimal-compliance procedures but faced pressure from the White House, which insisted on strict matching rules that could nullify entire mailings for a few errors. Board members feared retaliatory firings and relied on courts after multiple lawsuits were filed, while a whistleblower flagged the rushed, untested implementation. A 95-page rule to operationalize the plan was issued weeks before ballots went out, leaving unresolved questions about logistics, privacy and voter access.