Trump billionaire crony is trashing the USPS

[Yonivore]

I'm not even sure they use real postal carriers anymore. One Saturday, I saw a middle-aged woman in a moo moo putting mail in our community box from the back of a post office vehicle.

[ChumpDumper]

I'm not even sure they use real postal carriers anymore. One Saturday, I saw a middle-aged woman in a moo moo putting mail in our community box from the back of a post office vehicle.

Elon approves.

[Winehole23]

Cool story bro

[Winehole23]

more (apparent) backtracking

Susie Wiles isn't Trump, tho


The White House is denying President Donald Trump (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/donald-trump) is considering moving the U.S. Postal Service (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/postal-service) under the control of his administration, marking a potential first step toward privatizing the 250-year-old government agency, despite recent reports.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-postal-service-white-house-commerce-b2702320.html

[Thread]

more (apparent) backtracking

Susie Wiles isn't Trump, tho



https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-postal-service-white-house-commerce-b2702320.html

It may well have been a feint..."Look over here I'm going to take over the Post Office. And you can't stop me! Ha!" While over there Musk is firing a shitload of bureaucrats, or, Trump is sneaking a Big Mac in the well of his Oval Office Desk.

[Winehole23]

looks like House (R)s might bow up to Trump on this one



Ten voting House Republicans have now signed on to a resolution that says Congress "should take all appropriate measures" to make sure USPS remains an independent government agency and "not subject to privatization,” including Reps. Sam Graves and Thomas Keanwww.congress.gov/bill/119th-c... (https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolution/70/cosponsors?pageSort=lastToFirst&loclr=cga-bill)

[Winehole23]

Oregon hasn't had in-person elections in 30 years -- there's not enough time left before the midterms for it to create election infrastructure


NYT: "If the regulations are enacted, the Postal Service said that it would not deliver mail ballots in states that do not share voter data with the federal agency."

Only these 16 states have complied with Trump's data demands:
AL, AK, AR, FL, IN, IA, LA, MS, NE, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, WYhttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/us/politics/postal-service-rule-restrict-mail-ballots.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7VA.SmdK.A3Ia hiQcFO-s&smid=nytcore-android-share

[Winehole23]

The USPS acknowledged in the text of the final rule (https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-17238.pdf) posted online Friday, which is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register next week, that two injunctions issued by federal courts in California and Massachusetts currently bar it from moving ahead with the changes to comply with a March executive order (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/trump-order-election-voting-explainer) signed by Donald Trump.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/21/us-postal-service-mail-in-voter-rule

[Winehole23]

incidentally, interfering with the delivery of the US mail is a jailhouse crime


As mentioned in my comment on USPS's new ballot rule, the American postal service was born in 1774 _because_ the alternative system (the Crown's post) let the executive decide which mail not to deliver.

For a Court riveted by bespoke historical analogs, this rule is 252 years of unAmerican.https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/20260702-postal-rule-comment.pdf

[Winehole23]

The USPS can't decide which paychecks to deliver and which to toss.
The USPS can't decide which tax returns to deliver and which to toss.
The USPS can't decide which Christmas cards to deliver and which to toss.
And the USPS can't decide which ballots to deliver and which to toss.

[Winehole23]

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Judge Indira Talwani (Obama/MA) orders feds to respond by Tues 8AM to emergency motion challenging Trump mail-in ballot regs, contends USPS created emergency by posting the final rule after courts closed Fri. Will extend deadline to Thursday if govt consents to a TRO in meantime.

[Winehole23]

partisan mail delivery, or delivery according to Trump's say so, is crazypants


The National Rural Letter Carriers' Association's Patrick Pitts "strongly objects" to U.S. Postal Service's final rule in response to President Trump's order to limit mail voting for the midterms, adding USPS should deliver mail "neutrally" and not take on state & local election officials' jobs ​https://www.nrlca.org/Documents/WebContent/EditorDocuments/userFiles/File/public/NRLCA%20Statement%20on%20USPS’%20Final%20Rule%20Go verning%20Federa

[Winehole23]

Trump's rather obvious plan here is to create enough confusion around the midterm elections to justify throwing out the results.

Finger in the wind, if Trump does so he'll accelerate his own political demise. Stealing elections seldom works when your party loses by a lot. Especially when everybody can see what you're doing.

[Winehole23]

SCOTUS standing on procedural formalism -- not taking a position on whether the intended action is legal to begin with -- when Trump has a gun cocked in the direction of states led by Dems and all their mail-in voters


In its ruling on Monday, the Court decided that Talwani went too far. The thrust of the majority opinion is that because Trump’s order doesn’t impose obligations on states, states are not “harmed” in any meaningful sense. For example, the opinion casts the Department of Homeland Security’s creation of Trump-approved voter eligibility lists as a mere “internal directive from the President to a subordinate” that does not affect states one way or the other. The requirement that the Justice Department focus its attention on certain state officials, the Court says, is within Trump’s Article II power to set “prosecutorial priorities.” The provision that requires the Postal Service to draft a restrictive mail-in balloting rule merely “initiates” a “process” that “might bind the States in the future,” but “imposes no legal requirements” on them now.The Court allows that the Postal Service’s rule—again, a rule the Postal Service issued at Trump’s direction and according to his specifications—will not “necessarily” be lawful, and that states are free to challenge it. But at this stage of litigation, the majority concluded, blocking the executive order would cause Trump “irreparable harm,” because it improperly “interferes with the internal operations of the Executive Branch.”

This framing only tracks if you possess the critical thinking skills of a goldfish. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out in a dissent joined by Justice Elena Kagan, the order must be read as a “unified whole.” By simultaneously mandating the creation of Trump-approved eligibility lists and targeting state officials who allegedly issue ballots to ineligible voters, the White House is sending a clear message to its political enemies: Use its list, or else. The Court’s treatment of these provisions as independently innocuous is roughly analogous to arguing that because a bank robber hasn’t actually opened fire, the teller staring down the barrel of his gun should not understand “empty the safe” as a threat.
https://ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/supreme-court-mail-in-voting-2026-midterms/

[Winehole23]

so much for the Purcell principle


State officials have been preparing for the 2026 general election since the 2024 general election ended. They have spent time and money buying equipment, printing ballots, checking voter rolls, and training staff to work at polling places. Eight months before Election Day, Trump issued an illegal executive order that would disrupt all that careful preparation, and only on Friday did the Postal Service unveil its plan for implementing that order. Now, with just ten weeks to go until Election Day, the Court is essentially telling states, so sorry, you actually sued too early, better luck next time.


The government’s strategy—slow-rolling a rule while fast-tracking a demand for the Supreme Court’s preemptive blessing—is “tailor-made to weaponize this case as a means of destabilizing the nation’s vote-by-mail systems through court-assisted procedural maneuvers,” Jackson wrote. Trump’s actual objective, she continued, is to “foment chaos.”

[Winehole23]

narrator: the government did not even bother to argue that what it is trying to do is legal, i.e., founded in law and constitutional


In the context of the shrinking timeline, Purcell remains a dire threat to the integrity of the 2026 midterms. No matter how quickly lower courts move on the Postal Service’s proposal, as the calendar changes over to September and then to October, it is not hard to imagine this Court suddenly rediscovering the virtues of Purcell and declaring that with Election Day so near, it is too late for judges like Talwani to intervene.

[Winehole23]

because the USPS dragged its feet and waited until a time close to the election to issue the rule, SCOTUS, incredibly, can say it is too late to challenge, even though the rule itself will throw the election into chaos

e.g., Oregon has not had in-person voting for 30 years -- it's 100% mail-in voting

[Winehole23]

is it equitable to require a 100% mail-in voting state to set up in-person voting this close to an election?

SCOTUS is blind to the equities, it seems

[Winehole23]

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[Winehole23]

new USPS rule blocked temporarily

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[Winehole23]

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73133197/218/league-of-women-voters-of-massachusetts-v-trump/

[Winehole23]

reportedly, mail-in ballots start shipping to some states as early as next week, so the 14 day stay is consequential

[Winehole23]

"the USPS's interest in correcting an unsubstantiated problem through likely unconstitutional means is dwarfed by the overwhelming risk of pervasive disenfranchisement of citizens"


https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hpdaz5zbsrcozaxkjmttpsxn/bafkreihwtpvz2ufebca2vwdbrntgvrrg5sawruhg54maggjty y6ehfs5xy

[Winehole23]

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[Winehole23]

Judge Talwani upholds the TRO, enjoins USPS from effecting the new rule

Will be appealed to SCOTUS

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:36eqtmzysqf7wsslczw4uxcd/bafkreidu5o7x4gh7adhzkozry5gbos6tj3psm5igleh5m4jyy evwnzuhzy
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[Winehole23]

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sdfhzkjavqo5ifiofn4uafrb/bafkreifmugbxdbvzjdzmdxcys4mk7vgjep2g4tdsnd6mvfclj 7llx5kosi

[Winehole23]

the pull quote is overstated -- states that have provided voter roll personal information to Trump will not (in principle) have mail-in ballots withheld

vote early, in-person if you can




“[T]he main takeaway for me is that the Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans. One-third of all Americans cast their ballots by mail, and the U.S.P.S. puts all of their votes at risk.”www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/u...

[Winehole23]

there is a very special birthday boy who would have been very disappointed if they hadn't


Top U.S. Postal Service officials tasked with issuing new regulations on mail voting expressed concerns in internal meetings about how the rules they were drafting could delay or block ballots from reaching large swaths of eligible voters for the upcoming midterms, but the rules moved forward anyway, ProPublica has learned.https://www.propublica.org/article/mail-voting-usps-officials-concerns-disenfranchisement

[Winehole23]

if one ballot is wrongly addressed, a name misspelled, or the voter recently got married and changed their name, the USPS will withhold thousands of others, if the final rule stands




https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4usmserhjqkvhldgedfjb3jw/bafkreifzqrkkec2h7sz3plexouahoxwprodgesxqn2udr2i4q cdebto3eq

[Winehole23]

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Qf_V!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pro gressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe86bd23 3-6a14-452c-bc92-463a1a902835_1520x926.png

https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2026-08-31_final_letter-disclosure.pdf

[Winehole23]

good on NC



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[Winehole23]

Preliminary injunction against the new USPS rule issues, mooting her previous TRO and DOJ's emergency appeal of it


https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:36eqtmzysqf7wsslczw4uxcd/bafkreig42haqerqblltudmlfmfs6geefucwxavs4ufgovdx6i kgbluzcxahttps://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.298449/gov.uscourts.mad.298449.285.0.pdf

[Winehole23]

Intervenor-Defendants’ assurance that compliance will be feasible in their States seems implausible given the practical implications of the Final Rule. See Intervenors’ Opp’n 18–19 [Doc. No. 234]. As assessed by an expert in election administration, as to all States, “[n]one of the Rule’s requirements can feasibly be implemented before the November 3, 2026 General Election.” Patrick Decl. ¶ 18 [Doc. No. 264-1].61 The budgets for election administration have already been set, id. ¶ 34, State election training and procedures have largely already been finalized, id. ¶ 33, and States typically stagger the types of changes mandated by the Final Rule (like ballot redesign) across odd-numbered years off cycle from federal elections, to allow sufficient time for proper implementation, id. ¶ 85. Now, 60 days before the November 3, 2026 midterms, the Final Rule would require 10,000 different election jurisdictions to conform to new ballot design requirements (requiring many to re-design their ballots), have a wave of new designs undergo Mail Design Analyst review, id. ¶ 79, print new designs from their vendors (typically ranging from four to sixteen weeks in lead time), id. ¶ 86, and then, contingent on technological capabilities, collate and submit voter information to a portal that does not yet exist and has not been proven to work, id. ¶¶ 94, 97; see Monteith Decl. ¶ 3 [Doc. No. 280-1]. Having considered this series of hurdles for officials against the backdrop of an impending election, and mindful of the fact that any minor malfunction will result in the denial of mail ballots, the court concludes that disenfranchisement for Plaintiff Organizations’ members, regardless of residence, is practically inevitable.

[Winehole23]

we see this over and over again, DOJ declining to defend the lawfulness of executive actions and appealing judicial rulings that would temporarily prevent them from going into effect


Before the Supreme Court, Defendants and Intervenor-Defendants again declined to contest the merits of this court’s final judgment finding the EO unconstitutional.

[Winehole23]

Finding this court’s review of the merits premature, the Supreme Court stayed the injunction in California I. Id. at *5. The Supreme Court specified, however, that the disposition of the government’s emergency application “does not mean that any measure taken by the Government to implement the Order will necessarily be lawful.” Id.

[Winehole23]

In sum, the court finds that Plaintiff States and Organizations are also likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the USPS exceeded its statutory authority by promulgating the Final Rule because the Constitution reserves election regulation to Congress and the States, Congress has not authorized the USPS to make requirements of States before permitting use of the USPS for mailing their ballots, and that the Final Rule impermissibly establishes a new category of nonmailable material.

[Winehole23]

On the record before this court, the myriad aforementioned obstacles and negligible amount of time for officials to familiarize themselves with new processes (let alone successfully implement the new requirements) will make compliance by State and local officials with the Final Rule “virtually impossible” for the November 3, 2026 midterm elections.60 And because the USPS has conditioned sending mail ballots on compliance, disenfranchisement of Plaintiff Organizations’ members is unavoidable, rather than hypothetical for the upcoming elections. See Fish v. Kobach, 840 F.3d 710, 752 (10th Cir. 2016) (“[T]here can be no ‘do-over’ or redress of a denial of the right to vote after an election[.]”).

[Winehole23]

In balancing the harms based on the record before the court, the court finds, on one side, that immediate implementation of the Final Rule issued less than seventy days before the November 2026 election threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail, see Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 17 (1964) (referencing this eminently “precious” right) and, on the other side, that the record includes no evidence relating to fraudulent mail voting to support the rushed implementation of the Final Rule.62 The court finds moreover that enjoining the Final Rule’s mandatory provisions cannot harm the USPS or any State where “there is generally no public interest in the perpetuation of unlawful agency action[.]” Rhode Island v. Trump, 155 F.4th 35, 50 (1st Cir. 2025); see also Monteith Decl. ¶ 3 [Doc. No. 280-1] (asserting that the Portal is not currently operational).

[Winehole23]

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[Winehole23]

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[Winehole23]

Trump is wasting money, time and political capital cracking down on coalition members now


Trump’s DOJ is investigating Utah’s election chief for refusing to hand over voter data, it says in letter


https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:svawqo4jxobyyuqmixplvcux/bafkreicl5bw64e7is7nxnubugrhxkqrpo4di24euetkxllsws ndoqmfsfmhttps://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2026/09/09/trumps-doj-is-investigating-utahs/

[Winehole23]

Republican chief election officials from seven states said that it’s too late for President Donald Trump’s mail-in ballot order to be implemented before the midterm election, urging the Supreme Court to not allow the rule to go into effect in a brief submitted to the court (https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26A305/423667/20260909163513650_Election%20Officials%20Emergency %20SCOTUS%20amicus%20-%209-9-26%20FINAL.pdf) on Wednesday.


Trump’s order, signed in March (https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/31/trump-executive-order-limiting-mail-in-voting-00853296), aimed to crack down on mail-in voting and assert federal control ahead of November’s election. In August, the U.S. Postal Service released a final rule that would allow it to refuse delivering ballots to states that failed to provide lists of eligible voters or adhere to approved envelope styles.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/10/trump-mail-ballot-order-republican-election-officials-01070426

[Winehole23]

USPS already trying to reject ballots based on new hypertechnical design requirements

USPS withholding an entire county's mail-in ballots because of a barely visible spacing error is arbitrary, outrageous bullshit


A Florida county’s mail-in ballot envelope design was almost rejected by the U.S. Postal Service for less than two-hundredths of an inch.

Leon County, Florida’s mail ballot envelope design placed the words “return service requested” 0.236 inches away from its election office’s return address, when it was supposed to be a quarter-inch, leading the USPS to reject it on September 2, the Tallahassee Democrat reports (https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/09/10/postal-service-rejects-florida-county-mail-ballots-heres-why-leon-county-trump-voting/91656140007/). The county’s supervisor of elections, Mark Earley, called it “ridiculous.”

After Earley’s office filed an appeal, the envelope design was eventually accepted (https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2026/09/11/usps-oks-leon-county-mail-ballots-after-dispute/91706003007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=true&gca-epti=z116023p119050c119050e005500v116023d--40--b--40--&gca-ft=136&gca-ds=sophi).

“After several requests to postal employees today, I was granted a temporary certification for my envelopes in case the rule goes into effect. If the rule does not go into effect, then my envelopes are completely fine. So either way, we are good this election!” Earley told the Democrat in an email, referring to new USPS design rules resulting from President Trump’s executive order restricting voting by mail.


If the county had not been granted a reprieve, Leon County would have been stuck, as a statute requires ballots to be sent out to the county’s voters by September 24, a deadline that is too soon to create new envelopes. Earley told the newspaper that “these exact same envelopes have been used to mail many tens of thousands of ballots to Leon County voters in the 2024 elections and in the 2026 primary election without incident.”https://newrepublic.com/post/215342/usps-tries-rejecting-county-ballot-spacing-issue

[Winehole23]

(that Leon County went 60-39 for Kamala and is 30% Black is surely coincidental)

[Winehole23]

1CA denies the federal intervenors', states' and USPS's motion for a stay


The district court concluded that the Final Rule was likely unconstitutional because the United States Constitution assigns to the States the authority to administer elections subject to alterations imposed by Congress. The court determined that Congress had provided no authority for the Postal Service to promulgate a rule that regulates the manner of elections. It also found that, as a practical matter, it would be impossible for States to comply with the Final Rule's detailed requirements in the time remaining before the November 3 election, thus resulting in the potential disenfranchisement of millions of voters across the country. Appellants, various federal officials and entities as well as Intervenor States, have filed motions to stay the preliminary injunction. The Postal Service also requests an administrative stay. The motions are denied.


...And moreover, there is no record evidence of past fraud or a likelihood of impending fraud related to the November 3 election.


The motions for a stay are denied. The USPS's request for an administrative stay is denied as moot.https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca1.54770/gov.uscourts.ca1.54770.00108505918.0_1.pdf

[Winehole23]

Ultra vires, USPS likely acted beyond the scope of its power


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Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee sitting in DC, issues a preliminary injunction blocking the entire U.S. Postal Service mail ballot rule.storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.291053/gov.uscourts.dcd.291053.193.0.pdf)

[Winehole23]

Ultra vires, USPS likely acted beyond the scope of its power


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Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee sitting in DC, issues a preliminary injunction blocking the entire U.S. Postal Service mail ballot rule.storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.291053/gov.uscourts.dcd.291053.193.0.pdf)

[Winehole23]

SCOTUS rejects Trump's USPS scheme, the rule came too close to the election

Alito cries


The application for stay presented to JUSTICEJACKSON and by her referred to the Court is denied. The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court’s preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay. JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring. In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service’s statutory authority. See 39 U. S. C. §401(2).But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the electionshttps://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28621761-26a305/

[Winehole23]

the plot to turbofuck the midterms has failed, but the new USPS postmark rules can still nibble away at the edges of mail-in voting


Election mail that people leave at their local post office in Southern Oregon, where Schilling is based, typically sits overnight until it is collected in the morning since evening dispatches were slashed nationwide at the end of last year. The mail is then trucked nearly 300 miles to a Portland facility that processes mail for most of the state, where it is postmarked, then sent back to the local post office for delivery.


“Any mail that’s getting dropped into a blue box is not getting postmarked on the same day, and likely not on the day after either,” Schilling said. “The mail is so slow that it is an unreasonable amount of lead time that the normal person wouldn’t expect.”


Late last year, USPS announced that this practice was now official policy: It would no longer postmark mail automatically on the date it is received.
https://boltsmag.org/usps-postmark-rules-change-voter-registration-deadline-election-year/

[Winehole23]

Trump melts the fuck down

'These are not the people I interviewed"


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[Winehole23]

USPS fucked rural voters


But a ProPublica data analysis shows that delays resulting from the U.S. Postal Service’s cost-cutting measures have endangered the validity of ballots cast in rural areas, not only in Washington, but across the country.

Over the past three years, as mail volume continued to plummet and annual deficits ballooned, the Postal Service started consolidating the processing of first-class mail at larger regional plants instead of at smaller hubs closer to local post offices. Then, in a little-noted switch that mostly took effect after the 2024 election, the agency cut the frequency of mail pickups in half at many post offices 50 miles or more from these processing plants, from twice daily to once.

The changes often added a day or more to delivery time and, most importantly for ballots, pushed back postmarking, which doesn’t happen until mail reaches the regional centers.

In this year’s primary, the effects of the cuts were clearest in five states that make detailed data on mail-in ballots available: Washington, California, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon. All have or recently had grace periods allowing ballots to count if they come in after Election Day as long as they’re postmarked by the deadline.

In these states, the number of ballots rejected for arriving late soared in counties affected by the service changes compared to 2022, ProPublica’s analysis showed.

Rejection rates in counties where services were cut doubled or tripled from what they were four years ago, dwarfing any increases in counties where postal pickups remained as they were, our analysis showed. In urban Spokane, for example, the number of ballots rejected for being late actually dropped this year.

Across the five states, the delays have had the most substantial effect in areas that voted for Trump in 2024, ProPublica’s analysis shows. In Washington, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, said he sees the service changes directed by Republican appointees leading the Postal Service as a way to undermine mail-in voting.

“I don’t think they realized how much it was going to affect their voter base,” he said, adding that Washington has “a lot of rural Republican voters.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/mail-ballot-delays-postal-service-midterms