Election officials in Madison, Wis., mailed 18,000 ballots on Tuesday, more than a week ahead of the state\u2019s targeted date, just to get them out the door. In Weber County, Utah, officials are considering setting up distribution centers for voters to retrieve their mail ballots and bypass the Postal Service completely.<\/p>\n
Across the country, election officials are grappling with the confusing implications of the Trump administration\u2019s proposed mail ballot screening plan<\/a>, which would allow the Postal Service to determine which ballots can be delivered to voters.<\/p>\n A federal judge has halted<\/a> implementation of the system, which has been challenged as unconstitutional by two dozen states. The Trump administration has asked<\/a> the Supreme Court to intervene and allow it to go forward ahead of the midterm elections, which will determine the balance of power in Congress.<\/p>\n While they wait for the court\u2019s order, local election officials are trying to sort out how they would comply with the new rules, which would require states to use federally approved envelopes with bar codes unique to each voter and upload voter data to an online Postal Service portal, which is not yet operational.<\/p>\n \u201cQuite frankly, we don\u2019t even really have a way to prepare because we don\u2019t know when that ruling is going to come down, and then we\u2019re going to get state guidance, and then we are crunching up closer and closer to Election Day,\u201d said Lisa M. Deeley, the Democratic vice chair of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, which runs elections and voter registration for the city. The city is planning to start mailing ballots next week.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just chaos,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Some states, including North Carolina, Delaware and Alabama, have already mailed out their ballots, raising serious questions about how they could retroactively comply with the new system if it is put into place.<\/p>\n It is not clear whether or how the Postal Service would verify previously mailed ballots if the new rule goes into effect.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have not been provided any further information regarding their process for verifying the ballots,\u201d said Kristin Mavromatis, the spokeswoman for the board of elections in Mecklenburg County, N.C.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, 33 current Republican election officials, including the chief election officials in seven G.O.P.-controlled states, filed a brief to the Supreme Court, arguing that it was too close to the midterms to make any major changes to how elections are conducted.<\/p>\n The brief, which was signed by the Republican secretaries of state in Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, Georgia, New Hampshire and Kansas, as well as the lieutenant governor of Utah, broke with the Trump administration\u2019s effort to significantly restrict mail voting ahead of the 2026 elections. They were joined by 26 current county and local Republican election officials and five former Republican election officials.<\/p>\n In signing the brief, the secretaries of state in Kansas and South Dakota found themselves on opposite sides from those states\u2019 attorneys general, who were part of a Republican-led state coalition arguing in support of the administration\u2019s mail voting plans. The Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities also broke with their attorney general in signing the brief.<\/p>\n Their disagreement was not necessarily on the policy; rather, it was on the timing.<\/p>\n \u201cAttempting to implement the rule now will almost certainly lead to mistakes, delays and confusion for both voters and election officials,\u201d the brief states.<\/p>\n Many election experts say the plan could make it nearly impossible for some Americans to vote by mail because it would create impediments to the delivery of their ballots.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be massively disenfranchising, and it would serve no real purpose, because the government didn\u2019t make any showing that this rule is actually going to prevent any fraud, or even that they could put their rule in place,\u201d said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in election law.<\/p>\n Mr. Hasen said that the rule would especially hurt rural, disabled and elderly voters who often cannot easily get to polling locations.<\/p>\n Justin Roebuck, the Republican County clerk for Ottawa County, Mich., a conservative district with one-quarter of its voters casting mail ballots, said the rule appeared to do little to accomplish what the Trump administration has argued is its purpose \u2014 to increase voting security.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we are actually not accomplishing what the end goal was, but we are going to inconvenience millions of voters across the country \u2014 certainly, thousands in my community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Under the Constitution, states are responsible for carrying out elections. The states that are challenging the Trump administration\u2019s new plan say that it creates a federal role in elections because the Postal Service would reject ballot envelopes that do not comply with the new standards and send them back to local and state officials to fix.<\/p>\n \u201cThat comes dangerously close to playing a role in the administration of elections, which the Postal Service has always, always eschewed,\u201d William Hensley, a former Postal Service official who worked with local election officials on best practices for ballot delivery, said.<\/p>\n The Postal Service has denied taking on a new election administration role, saying<\/a> that states have complete control over voter registration data.<\/p>\n The agency did not respond to requests for comment this week. In a statement on Friday, the postmaster general, David Steiner, said<\/a>, \u201cRegardless of political party or perspective, we share a common goal: ensuring that Americans can have confidence that their election mail will be handled securely and delivered reliably should their election officials choose to use the mail for ballot delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the requirements in the rule \u2014 such as those that would standardize federal ballot envelopes and create unique bar codes for voters that the Postal Service can easily read automatically \u2014 could improve the process, some elections officials and lawyers said. But, they added, it is impossible to accomplish those changes in time for the Nov. 3 elections.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are all good things,\u201d said Eric Fey, the Democratic elections director in St. Louis County, Mo. \u201cBut if people haven\u2019t been doing it, it can\u2019t be implemented overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n