The Center for Election Confidence (CEC) submitted a comment to the United States Postal Service (USPS/Postal Service) in response to its proposed rule concerning Ballot Mail for Federal Elections. The USPS issued this proposed rule in response to President Trump’s March 31, 2026, Executive Order (no. 14399), Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.
CEC supports the Postal Service’s efforts to improve the preparation, visibility, and handling of ballot mail in federal elections. The proposed rule would require federal ballot mail envelopes to include the official Election Mail logo, be automation compatible, use unique Intelligent Mail barcodes, and undergo Postal Service design review before use. These practical requirements would improve the security of ballot mail and help voters, election officials, and the Postal Service ensure that ballot mail is identifiable, trackable, and processed more efficiently.
CEC’s comment emphasizes that the Postal Service is strongest when it remains within its institutional competence: regulating the use of the mail, which includes improvements to ballot-mail processing. “The Proposed Rule is strongest where it remains within that institutional competence: regulating the use of the mail and improving ballot-mail processing,” CEC explains.
CEC also supports appropriate use of ballot-mail data to identify objective anomalies, including to enforce long-standing federal criminal law concerning possible fraudulent use of the mails. CEC urges USPS to make express what is implied, that these provisions are not a system for federal officials to review voters’ ballot choices or investigate ordinary voters engaged in lawful mail voting but that these mail-integrity procedures are intended to help identify bad actors who unlawfully attempt to exploit ballot mail.
The comment further encourages USPS to adopt strong Privacy Act, data-security, and transparency safeguards before implementing the proposed Federal Ballot Mail Portal. CEC recommends encryption, role-based access controls, multi-factor authentication, audit logs, vendor-access restrictions, breach-notification procedures, and clear retention limits.
Finally, in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Watson v. RNC, 609 U.S. ___ (2026), CEC renews its call for USPS to restore its pre-December 2025 postmarking practices, at least for ballot mail and Election Mail. CEC explains that the postmark has always been intended for third-party reliance. As such, the Postal Service has a civic duty to provide reliable postmarks or equivalent date information for ballots deposited with the Service. As CEC notes, “[t]o do otherwise is to deny the right to vote of individuals whose ballots are mailed before Election Day but delivered to the appropriate election official after that date in states that allow such a grace period.”
CEC urges USPS to finalize the proposed rule’s core ballot-mail visibility, automation, unique barcode, design-review, technical-assistance, and extraordinary-measures provisions while adopting the clarifications necessary to protect voter privacy, support lawful enforcement, and strengthen voters’ confidence in federal elections.