The U.S. Postal Service proposed new rules recently requiring each state to provide voter data on mail-in ballots in federal elections in an attempt to re-assure the half of Americans who do not trust our election procedures, particularly for mail-in ballots.
And as predictable as the sunrise, Democrats and their allies immediately launched a legal challenge to stop another basic election integrity effort. They have met with initial success by getting a D.C. district judge, naturally, to block the proposed rules and now it will be up to the Department of Justice to appeal it.
The proposal requires states to provide the Postal Service with the names and addresses of voters receiving mail-in or absentee ballots in federal elections, along with unique barcodes that are tied to each voter’s outbound and return ballot envelopes. This is a fairly straightforward way to ensure the integrity of mail-in ballots.
The Postal Service will be able to compare the ballots returned to the ballots mailed out to the voter rolls. So it nixes much of the concern of ballot stuffing, late ballot harvesting and the rest of the shady methods by which Democrats always come from behind days and weeks after election day to somehow win.
Democrats are freaking out over claims this is the destruction of democracy, the disenfranchisement of voters and the whole tired, worn-out litany of squawking points they pull out whenever their vote-rigging schemes are at risk. Expect Jim Crow 2 to make his fourth appearance.
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read wrote: “This would deny eligible people the right to vote. Full stop…This is not in the president’s power. If the Democrats’ lawsuit fails, "you will see a virtual elimination of mail-in voting, unless the states supply voter lists to the federal government," said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellow. They definitely do not want the feds to see their voting rolls.
The NAACP, in its challenge to the D.C. judge, claimed “Implementation of the Proposed Rule would threaten to prevent millions of eligible voters from receiving mail-in ballots.”
Despite what the Clinton-appointed judge ruled, none of this frenzy holds water in real life. Americans buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of items online every year, plopping down their money, tracking their packages and trusting they will receive them. But a barcode like that on a ballot is the end of democracy? Please.
There is a 30-day public comment period, after which the rule goes into effect, though it is already being challenged in court by Democrats. Twenty-three Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits to block the order, claiming President Trump does not have the power to do this.
Well, it is not Trump, it is the USPS, and they do seem to have the authority to make such rules under 39 U.S.C. 401 and 404, where the agency is given power to regulate mail. But that will have to have everything hashed out quickly in court to impact the midterms.
The USPS proposed rule changes came a day after a federal judge in Washington, D.C. chose not to issue an injunction blocking a broader Trump executive order on this issue.
The USPS has previously recommended these rules as best practices. But it is now mandating them for federal elections, requiring official logos, tracking barcodes, and a reporting system that links voters to specific envelopes.
This level of accountability on mail-in ballots is what the system has needed for years. It could act as a block on the abuses of ballot harvesting, and mysterious late-arriving ballot dumps that mysteriously always benefit Democrats.
And of course, that is exactly why Democrats are in fits over it. To put a fine point on it: These rules damage their ability to cheat. They acknowledge it with their opposition. And for the umpteenth time, it puts the lie to the Democrats’ hilarious claim to care about defending democracy.
Rod Thomson is a former daily newspaper reporter and columnist, Salem radio host and ABC TV commentator, and current Founder of The Thomson Group, a Florida-based political consulting firm. He has eight children and seven grandchildren and a rapacious hunger to fight for America for them. Follow him on Twitter at @Rod_Thomson. Email him at [email protected].
