A Vote-By-Mail polemic

Responding to another attempted violation by the Felon President's minions

Photo c/o Sarah Stierch (CC BY 4.0)

I submitted the following as a public comment.

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This is a comment in regards to the proposed rule, listed at https://federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/02/2026-10968/ballot-mail-for-federal-elections:

The Postal Service is proposing to amend the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), regarding the transmission of mail-in or absentee ballots for federal elections pursuant to its rulemaking authority.

I oppose the proposed rule.

The proposed rule violates the settlement agreed to by all parties, per Document 170 in Case 1:20-cv-02295-EGS in the US District Court for DC.

The proposed rule disenfranchises a great many voters in states where voting by mail is a chief means of casting a ballot.

Supplementary information provided with the proposed rule describes it as an effort to “reduce the risk of fraud.” However, contrary to the outlandish claims of President Donald J. Trump and his allies and supporters, claims repeatedly invalidated in numerous courtrooms and scientific studies, incidence of voter fraud is minuscule and has almost never affected an election outcome. (An exception is the case of McCrae Dowless, a Republican political operative employed in the 2018 primary by then candidate and now current NC Congressman Mark Harris.)

The proposed rule has an obvious partisan intent, in that Republican voters have tended to vote on election day, at the polls, more than Democratic voters, who tend to make more use of mail-in ballots. (That has no relevance in my own state, Oregon, where there are no polling stations. In Oregon, voters only deposit ballots, which they have received in the mail, in ballot drop boxes or mailboxes.)

The so-called Red Mirage, in which a seeming election-night Republican victory is overtaken and reversed by later tallying of the less immediately received mailed ballots, gives a false impression of actual election results. This reversal is not fraud, however much decried as such.

The Executive Order triggering the proposed rule, EO 14399, violates two parts of the US Constitution.

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:
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.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 7:
The Congress shall have Power...To establish Post Offices and post Roads...

The Constitution deprives the President of dictating election and Post Office processes and procedures. And the Supreme Court would likely consider such an interference to be ruled out by its recent Major Questions doctrine.

The proposed rule is thus misbegotten. It is outrageous that USPS is even proposing it, violating as it does longstanding law, USPS policy, and the 2021 settlement noted above.

For these reasons, I oppose it.

Sincerely,

[my name and address went here]

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The proposed rule offers an email address for comments: PCFederalRegister@usps.gov. Instructions for sending comments on this rule are at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/02/2026-10968/ballot-mail-for-federal-elections#addresses. They write: “Comments must be received on or before July 2, 2026.” They did not acknowledge receipt of my comment. They might ignore it, as the FP’s maladministration ignores so much public displeasure. But it’s better to register that displeasure than to shrug. I want Oregon and similarly administered state election offices to keep our vote by mail — so easy, so convenient, higher turnout, secure.

In this regard, let me call your attention to the National Vote at Home Institute (NVHI), a nonpartisan, 501c(3) nonprofit organization that works to increase voters’ access to, use of and confidence in mailed-out ballots. Voting at home works, in both Democratic-leaning states and Republican-leaning states, as the NVHI map at https://voteathome.org/how-americans-vah/ shows.