The Center for Election Confidence (CEC) submitted comments to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in response to its Notice and Request for Comment regarding recommended refinements to the 2026 Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS). CEC’s comments focus on three main areas: USPS Postmark Regulatory Change, Cybersecurity Protections, and List Maintenance.

USPS Postmark Regulatory Change

Recently, the United States Postal Service (USPS) issued a final rule that ended its long-standing postmarking policy, resulting in most mail now not receiving a postmark at the time of deposit with the postal service. This has severe impacts on all who rely on the postmark to judge timeliness, including voters and election officials. CEC opposed this change in policy, “emphasizing that postmarks have long served as a trusted marker of whether voters met statutory deadlines.”

In response to the uncertainty caused by USPS postmark policy changes, CEC urges the EAC to include questions in the 2026 EAVS relating to voting by mail statutes, policies and practices, including with respect to postmarking, to transmission and receipt deadlines, and to timely acceptance. The EAC plays an important role as a clearinghouse for best practices relating to administering elections. Information collected about the experiences of different states will be critical for others who may need guidance on how to square USPS’ declining standards with their own statutory requirements regarding election mail.

Cybersecurity Protections

CEC also recommends the EAC to include questions related to cybersecurity in the 2026 EAVS. Examples of cybersecurity concerns for election officials include ransomware, data exfiltration or manipulation, and/or privilege escalation with respect to Internet-connected (non-voting) equipment. Recent elections have shown that voter concerns with cybersecurity have the potential to cause deep distrust and confusion within the electorate regarding all stages of the voting process.

List Maintenance

Voter list maintenance is required by federal law, but the information gleaned from these efforts is provided to the public inconsistently and irregularly. In light of this data availability problem, CEC suggests the following figures be collected as part of the 2026 EAVS:

• Registrants who were inactive according to the criteria described in subsection (d)(1)(b), Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act;
• Registrants who voted in at least one of the prior two consecutive general elections for Federal office;
• Registrants removed from the list of official voters in the State pursuant to subsection (d)(1)(b), Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act; and
• Registrants who received a notice sent pursuant to subsection (d)(2), Section 8 of the National VoterRegistration Act and responded.

The EAC should also ask states to provide information about how they are utilizing federal databases and the inter-state exchange of voter registration information for voter list maintenance.

Disclosure of this information is both beneficial for government officials and the public. As transparency increases, public confidence in elections will undoubtedly increase.