The chief of the U.S. Postal Service confirmed the agency has stopped its work on implementing a computer system that would have verified mail-in ballots for the midterm elections under an executive order from President Donald Trump.
In a Thursday interview with the Associated Press, Postmaster General David Steiner said “we’re not doing anything” because of a preliminary injunction upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this week.
Steiner declined to give an opinion on the president’s executive order that led to the Postal Service’s mail-in ballot rule. He was more concerned about the implementation of the rule rather than the policy’s merits.
“I don’t get to decide what rules that are put on us that I decide to accept or not accept,” he said. “I looked at it more from the execution side.”
The agency’s work on the ballot system while an injunction remained in effect was a concern for Democrats on Capitol Hill after an anonymous whistleblower revealed as much.
Trump had sought to maintain election integrity this year by requiring states to adopt a uniform envelope style that included barcodes and turn over lists of eligible voters that would be found in an online portal. If the new requirements weren’t met, the Postal Service could have refused to deliver mail-in ballots in states that failed to adopt the new system.
SUPREME COURT DENIES TRUMP’S EMERGENCY REQUEST TO ENFORCE MAIL-IN BALLOT RESTRICTIONS
Implementing the new system would have been a monumental task for states with less than two months before the general election. Alabama and North Carolina are among the states that have already begun early mail-in voting.
After the Supreme Court denied Trump’s emergency motion to enforce the ballot restrictions, the Postal Service sent a memo to all employees stating that it will “not be enforcing any of these new rules in the 2026 federal election.”