US Postal Service halts Trump mail voting system after Supreme Court block

The US Postal Service has stopped work on a computer system tied to Donald Trump's mail voting order. The move keeps election mail operations under existing rules after the Supreme Court blocked the plan.

In Short

• Election mail will follow established protocols, with normal operations continuing nationwide
• David Steiner said his role was operational, not judging policy legality
• A whistleblower report alleged the rushed platform contained significant errors

The US Postal Service has stopped work on a controversial computer system that was central to President Donald Trump's push to limit mail voting, after the Supreme Court rejected his executive order for this year's election. Postmaster General David Steiner said the agency was no longer moving ahead with the plan.

Steiner said the postal service would continue with its usual election mail operations and did not offer any view on the court's decision or on Trump's policy itself. He described the postal service as an "independent agency of the executive branch" and said his role was focused on carrying out operational work rather than deciding whether to accept rules imposed on the agency.

"There's an injunction so we're not doing anything," Steiner told The Associated Press in an interview. He added: "I don't get to decide what rules that are put on us that I decide to accept or not accept. I looked at it more from the execution side."

Steiner, a former chief executive of Waste Management, has spent much of the past year dealing with political and financial pressures at the postal service. He is also pressing Congress for changes that he says would help address what he has called a "liquidity crisis".

Trump's March executive order had directed several federal agencies to create state citizenship lists. Those lists were to be sent to an online portal at the Postal Service, which would then have been allowed to send mail ballots only to voters cleared through that process. Steiner said he knew about the order about a month before it was announced, but said his focus was mainly on implementation rather than on the policy itself.

A whistleblower report released earlier this month by Senator Richard Blumenthal argued that the system had been built in haste and was full of errors. Steiner said he had read "portions" of the report and accepted that building such a large platform so quickly came with challenges. Even so, he said he had confidence in the team working on it and had planned to unveil the system around September 15. "There's absolutely no doubt that we worked fast," he said. "My personal opinion is it was a monumental task and I'm very proud of our IT department for being able to do it that fast."

The order had also required states to use a uniform envelope style with barcodes, a move that states said would have been difficult so close to the election. After the Supreme Court ruling, a memo sent on Wednesday to postal service employees said the agency would "not be enforcing any of these new rules in the 2026 federal election". "First and foremost, for Election Mail it is business as usual," the memo said. "We continue to follow established protocols, and we remain entirely focused on our core mission: delivering the mail safely and securely for voters and election officials across the country."

Although the Supreme Court blocked the order for this year's election, Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated he might support the administration if the issue returns to the court later. Steiner said the postal service would still encourage the use of envelopes and barcodes in future elections, as it has long recommended, but said they would not be compulsory. "If you use the barcode in the envelope, we'll charge you a lower price," he said. "If you don't, we're going to charge you a higher price because it's harder for us to process."

Steiner also denied talk that he might resign amid the pressure on the agency. "There's no truth to that," he said. "I think I know the motivation behind it. I think it's somebody that would like to see me out of a job." Asked about a 2019 standoff in which the first Trump administration tried to pressure the postal service during the president's dispute with Amazon, Steiner said he would not get into the "nuance" of that episode.

Even with the new system on hold, concerns remain about postmark delays affecting this year's election. Recently released data from Washington and Oregon showed a sharp rise in ballots rejected for late postmarks. Steiner said there were no plans to change current operations and urged voters using the mail to send their ballots early. "We say seven days," he said. "Everything is solved if people vote early." In effect, the postal service has halted work on Trump's voting plan for now and says election mail will continue under existing rules.

With PTI Inputs

- Ends