Trump Bid to Take Over Postal Service Could Threaten Mail Voting
President Donald Trump may soon attempt to absorb the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), an independent agency, into his administration by issuing an executive order that reportedly would dissolve the service’s leadership.
The order could allow the Trump administration to make mail voting — which was used by tens of millions of voters last year — more difficult. Trump has repeatedly said he’d like to end the practice, falsely claiming it allows for widespread fraud.
“Taking over the Postal Service just kind of opens up a whole Pandora’s box of mischief,” said Barbara Smith Warner, the executive director of National Vote at Home Institute, a nonprofit which works to increase voters’ access to and confidence in mail voting.
“This is a way that the federal government could put a really big thumb on the scale and impact every state’s ability to run their own elections,” she added.
The move will likely be swiftly challenged as a violation of the Constitution and the Postal Reorganization Act, an almost 55-year-old law that states: “The exercise of the power of the Postal Service shall be directed by a Board of Governors composed of 11 members.”
However, if the executive order is upheld by courts — or if Trump ignores court orders against it — he would have immense power over mail delivery.
Most importantly, it would give Trump and his political appointees direct control over the agency that handles mail ballots, which Republicans have revolted against and disparaged as a vehicle for election fraud since even before Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election.
Smith Warner said she’s concerned that the order — paired with Trump’s baseless assertions on mail ballots and the Republican war on ballot drop boxes — will damage voters’ trust in mail voting because it in large part depends on the public’s centuries-old confidence in the Postal Service.
If the president directly controls the service, “are people going to feel confident that they’re going to get their ballot let alone it being returned?” she asked.
It would also further Trump’s aspirations to privatize the service, which would upend how Americans vote by mail and get critical deliveries like prescription drugs, Smith Warner warned.
Jake Grumbach, an associate professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, told Democracy Docket that the order is a clear continuation of his administration’s goal to snuff out structural or independence within the executive branch.
“This certainly seems like a move you’d want to take if you wanted more executive control over the postal service in order to do more political things with it, one of which could be affecting the distribution of mail ballots,” Grumbach said.
Trump’s pending order specifically disbands the USPS’s board of governors, according to the Washington Post, which first reported on a potential takeover. Similar to a board of directors of a private corporation, it consists of nine governors who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate and who go on to select the postmaster general and the deputy postmaster general.
The order then puts USPS under the control of the Department of Commerce, which is now led by longtime Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick, who has expressed interest in privatizing USPS, according to the Post.
Anthony Fowler, a professor of public policy at the University of Chicago, told Democracy Docket that if Trump’s order ultimately is allowed, he could see the Postal Service requiring postage on ballots.
Currently, it only encourages voters to add the appropriate postage on ballots but will still deliver ballots that lack it. This small postage requirement could nullify the ballots of thousands of people who were unaware of the change, Smith Warner noted.
Trump renewed his attack on mail ballots and other forms of voting during a Feb. 21 meeting with governors, baselessly claiming that “any time you have mail-in ballots you’re going to have fraud” and that “we’re one of the only countries that has mail-in voting.”
There is no evidence that mail ballots increase electoral fraud, and dozens of other democracies have postal voting.
Trump also reportedly soured on Louis DeJoy, the current postmaster general who was a Republican megadonor before his appointment, because he did not clamp down on postal balloting during the 2020 election and publicly refuted Trump’s claims of mishandled mail-in ballots before the 2024 election.
DeJoy recently announced he intends to step down amid reports that Trump and his allies were vetting candidates to succeed him.
Richard John, a professor of history and communications at Columbia University, told Democracy Docket history is replete with examples of presidents and political organizations using the postal service for their own political gains.
He noted that during the debate to ratify the Constitution there were allegations that the postmaster general at the time was intentionally delaying or stopping the delivery of political materials he disagreed with.
A Postal Service under the Commerce Department also risks reverting back to the “patron engine” it was throughout much of the 19th Century, when presidents would give out lucrative contracts and jobs in exchange for partisan donations and allegiance, John said.
He said it’s possible the order is part of a plan to rein in mail ballots. “Sadly, I couldn’t say trying to control ballots is completely unprecedented.” However, he pointed out that Republicans made gains in mail voting during the 2024 election.