First, I want to thank everyone for not noticing my absence over the long weekend 😊. Mrs. Wypoxic and I travelled to a remote destination to be with Wypoxic child #2 who got engaged this past weekend. It was a nice break from the crazy.
But let’s get back at it, shall we?
This USPS story encapsulates everything that is wrong with the current Administration and the inability of our court system to truly rise to squelch the 5-alarm firewhoeflames are fanned by the unconstitutional actions of this regime.
I’ll let Marc Elias do some ‘splaining (bold emphasis mine):
In my 30 years as a lawyer, I have read countless government documents. Over the last decade, I have watched Trump and his lawyers spin lies and frivolous arguments.
Yet, nothing quite prepared me for this sentence from a rule released by the U.S. Postal Service on Friday night: "Although ballot mail does not present precisely the same operational issues as cremated remains or replica explosives, it is unquestionably sensitive mail that raises unique operational considerations."
A mail-in ballot does not pose a health risk. It will not cause panic if exposed to the public. It's a piece of paper marked with a pen that is only dangerous to authoritarians wishing to rule rather than govern with the consent of their citizens.
Ballots do not raise "unique operational considerations" unless you are aiming to limit voting and undermine democracy. Such Orwellian reasoning is dangerous to an already fragile republic battered by years of Trump's lies.
Yet, equating mail-in ballots to human remains and fake explosives is part of the rationale the U.S. Postal Service offered to justify Donald Trump's unconstitutional executive order. It is how they sought to get around the obvious fact that Congress has not given the USPS or the president authority to do what they're attempting here: render unmailable any ballots Trump disapproves of.
The USPS announced all of this in a rule it released late Friday night — presumably hoping few would notice what it was up to. The new rule was crafted to effectuate Trump's March executive order, which restricts mail voting and creates a new federal voter database.
Under this new rule, the USPS will only send mail ballots to voters included on a state list. If voters aren't on the lists, they will not receive a ballot.
Earlier this summer, a federal court blocked this executive order and halted the rulemaking. In June, the court granted the motion of 24 Democratic attorneys general to invalidate this entire scheme.
After the First Circuit upheld this victory, the Department of Justice sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court. Their argument was not that Trump's executive order was lawful, but rather that the states' lawsuit was premature.
The DOJ suggested that no steps had been taken to implement Trump's power grab, and perhaps the Postal Service and other federal agencies would refuse to take the actions Trump suggested. That was always a sham aimed at buying time — dismiss the lawsuit as premature, then move fast enough to later claim the process was too far along to stop.
Since the DOJ sought Supreme Court relief in July, the time left to implement this executive order has begun slipping away. Two weeks ago, the DOJ asked the Court to hurry up.
It also asked the Court to proactively block a nationwide injunction the district judge had issued in a second, related case brought by a group of nonprofits representing voters. Yet, as the week ended, the Supreme Court remained silent.
Finally, on Friday night, the USPS acted, noting that "delaying the effective date would jeopardize implementation of this rule in time for the 2026 general election, which will be held on November 3, 2026."
So much for their argument that the case wasn't ripe for adjudication.
With this step, the Postal Service has unquestionably taken the type of concrete action that satisfies the standing requirement that the DOJ told the Supreme Court was missing. The Postal Service conceded as much in its Friday notice: "The rule would require states to adjust their processes and adapt to the changes imposed by the rule, potentially incurring new costs."
There was one more twist that USPS was probably not expecting. On Sunday, the nonprofit plaintiffs filed an emergency motion with the trial court to halt the publication of the rule. If it isn't published, it cannot take effect.
The DOJ attempted to minimize this by suggesting that the rule's implementation was contingent on the DOJ winning at the Supreme Court. The judge was not amused. She ordered the DOJ to respond to the motion by 8 a.m. on Tuesday — so that she could, if necessary, block its publication scheduled for Wednesday.
We have come to expect these types of games from the Trump administration. We knew he had planned to weaponize the historically nonpartisan U.S. Postal Service to meet his own political needs.
On that score, the rule did not hide the ball. It reflects the "importance of applying additional measures concerning the use of the mail to vote in federal elections, in order to facilitate enforcement of federal law, reduce the risk of fraud, and help protect the integrity of federal elections."
Never mind that there is little risk of fraud and nothing this rule does would minimize it. After 250 years, it is sad to see the Postal Service reduced to chasing false claims of fraud and suggesting ballots pose unique challenges.
Everything Trump touches is tarnished. That now includes the USPS.
Let’s back it up a bit.
The U.S. Constitution places voting rules in the hands of the individual states, unless Congress intervenes. Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 (The Elections Clause) states, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” The Article II branch - the Executive Branch - has no power in the Constitution with regard to election rules. MNone. Zero. Nada. Zippo.
As most of us know, the Trump Admin has been trying to get voting lists from individual states so it can manipulate those lists to its advantage. To date, they have lost every lawsuit decision in that regard. They are currently 0 for 23.
So Trump and his cronies decided to try another way. Trump issued Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” on March 31, 2026. Among other things, the order directed USPS to propose rules that would (bold emphasis mine):
Require outbound ballot envelopes to be marked as Official Election Mail.
Require ballot envelopes to carry a unique Intelligent Mail barcode to facilitate tracking.
Require USPS to review ballot-envelope designs for compliance with USPS standards.
Have states notify USPS at least 90 days before a federal election if they intended to use USPS to transmit mail or absentee ballots.
Have states provide USPS, at least 60 days before the election, with a list of voters to whom the state intended to send mail ballots.
Establish a “Mail-In and Absentee Participation List.”
Require that a person be enrolled on the state-specific list before USPS would transmit that person's ballot.
As the Brennan Center wrote, “the March 2026 order attempts to have USPS determine who can receive mail ballots and refuse delivery to people who aren't on newly created lists, raising questions about presidential authority over elections.”
Several states attorney generals sued to stop this blatantly unconstitutional and illegal power grab, as did several non-profit organizations. And they’ve won in the lower courts, with courts instituting a stay on the proposed rule.
Of course, the Trump Admin rushed to appeal to stay the stay and allow the rule to be implemented. This is where it gets… sketchy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, on July 28, 2026, ruled that the challenge to the USPS rule was not ripe because no final rule had yet been issued. So, as long as the USPS delayed on a proposed rule, their actions and the Executive Order could not be questioned in court. While IANAL, not being able to rule on the legality of the Article II - Executive - Branch overstepping their constitutional authority because of inaction of the USPS makes no sense.
And, of course, SCOTUS has not yet issued a final opinion.
I wouldn’t place much confidence in SCOTUS to do the right thing. Trump and his sycophants are desperately trying to disenfranchise any voter they think will vote against them (or for their opponents).
The mail service, whose mission is apolitical and whose remit is to deliver the mail, is now making clearly political decisions outside of their purview and being subjugated to the fraud that is the Trump Administration.
It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment.
Elvis Presley - Return to Sender
