USPS whistleblower warns of Trump-ordered ballot tool

What happened

The U.S. Postal Service is poised to roll out a “secretive, rushed” and error-riddled online portal for states that could “derail” mail-in voting in the midterm elections, according to a whistleblower complaint released Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). The tool was created in three months, sometimes in defiance of court orders, to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to limit mail voting before the midterms, a USPS official said in the complaint. The “slapdash” development effort and a “zero percent failure” verification requirement mean “potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all.”

Who said what

A federal judge in Boston has temporarily halted USPS from forcing states to use its new Federal Ballot Mail Portal system. But if the stay is lifted or overturned, USPS would require states to submit lists of mail ballot recipients and get approval for envelope and ballot designs with individualized barcodes. If the system worked as designed, the whistleblower said, entire batches of tens of thousands of ballots would be rejected if there were a problem with “even one barcode on one single ballot.” Blumenthal told reporters the new system is “intended to fail.”

What next?

Blumenthal gave Postmaster General David Steiner until Friday to respond to the claims detailing “USPS’s ​seemingly illegal plot to interfere in November’s midterms.” A USPS spokesperson said the Postal Service was “carefully reviewing” the allegations but will roll out the portal “soon” to states that want to use it.

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