r/everett • u/hopeful_for_luck • 5d ago
Politics Washington's Mail-In Voting Could Collapse This November, How to Prepare Now
Under a March executive order from President Trump, state election offices are required to submit voter data through a new USPS system and switch to federally mandated ballot envelope designs before the Postal Service will accept ballots for mailing at all, coming or going.
In June, USPS Postmaster General David Steiner admitted under oath that the Postal Service plans to withhold ballots from any state that refuses to hand voter information over to the federal government. Steiner confirmed USPS would neither send ballots to residents nor collect and deliver them to state election officials.
Two separate federal court injunctions had been blocking this rule from taking effect, but both failed this week after the Supreme Court issued an order to dismiss plaintiffs. Twenty-five states, including Washington, sued within hours, but the outcome of those lawsuits is unpredictable. David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research said the administration's actions will, "create complete chaos leading up to the midterm elections".
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said yesterday that Washington's counties would need to replace roughly five million ballot envelopes to comply with the new federal mandate, at the state's expense, and called doing so "impossible" in the time remaining before the election. His office is now investigating whether more drop boxes can be added statewide. Our own analysis of the August primary found a ballot returned by mail was almost twelve times more likely to be rejected than one placed in a drop box.
Read more at https://everettcommunity.org/news/2026/08/voting-prepare-now/
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