Democratic governors press US Postal Service to drop plan tied to Trump's election order
A group of Democratic governors asked the U.S. Postal Service on Thursday to withdraw its proposed rule seeking to implement an executive order from President Donald Trump to create a federal list of eligible voters and potentially limit who can receive a ballot in the mail.
The president signed the order in March. It directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to create a “citizenship list” for each state and the Postal Service to limit mailed ballots to those on the lists.
The Postal Service filed a proposed rule to implement the order in late May. Since then, a federal judge has blocked Trump's executive order and barred agencies from implementing it, saying it was unconstitutional because only states and Congress — not the president — have the power to set election rules.
The letter sent Thursday was an effort organized by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and included eight other Democratic governors — from California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. It cited the judge's ruling and asked that the Postal Service withdraw the rule it had proposed to fulfill Trump's order.
“Far from ensuring integrity in federal elections," they wrote in the six-page letter, “the Proposed Rule would undermine trust in elections, needlessly complicate voting processes, arbitrarily disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, and undermine states’ constitutional role in ensuring free and fair elections.”
The proposed rule would grant, they argued, “unilateral power to refuse to deliver their ballots if a state refuses to collaborate with President Trump’s unlawful directives.”
The Postal Service did not immediately respond to calls and emails seeking comment. It had filed the proposed rule in the Federal Register after a judge considering a separate lawsuit against Trump's executive order declined to block it because the administration — at that point — had not taken steps to implement it. The Democratic and civil rights groups that filed that lawsuit have appealed the ruling.
The executive order also met pushback from postal workers, with the president of the American Postal Workers union, Jonathan Smith, previously saying that their job was not to “verify voter eligibility” but to “move mail from one destination to the next."
It was the second executive order seeking oversight of elections that Trump has signed since returning to office. The centerpiece of his first order, which also has been blocked by the courts, sought to require people to show documented proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Both orders revolve around Trump's targeting of voting by noncitizens, which studies and investigations by state and local authorities have shown to be rare. Trump also has fixated on voting by mail as a source of fraud, even though he also uses the method.
There is no indication of any widespread problems with mail voting, which has gained in popularity among Democrats and Republicans alike. A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that the number of cases of mail voting fraud was minuscule — about four cases per 10 million mail ballots.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
