this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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The US Postal Service effort to develop a sweeping new system for verifying mail ballots has invited a host of IT concerns among agency officials, with some describing the process internally as a “sh*t show,” according to a new whistleblower report released Tuesday by a Democratic senator.

The unnamed whistleblower is alleging that some of the procedures USPS is planning – under mandates put forward by President Donald Trump – have been hidden from the public. Those procedures will make an already complicated and risky plan even more vulnerable to potential mass disenfranchisement, the whistleblower says.

The new report – which was assembled by the whistleblowers’ lawyers and released by Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal – comes as multiple courts are considering the legality of the proposal, which would require that states submit to USPS lists of their mail-in voters. The agency will not deliver ballots for states if there are any discrepancies between the voter information in the USPS system and what’s picked up by agency scanners on the envelopes of the ballots.

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[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Voting in person isn’t much better when those machines are owned by musk and other far right extremist oligarchs. I seriously doubt the results of the last election. I don’t think we can not vote by mail where I live anymore. I trust the mail in ballots more than these shadowy voting machines

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 186 points 2 days ago (5 children)

States operate elections. States decide what is a valid or invalid ballot. USPS is not a state.

[–] Manjushri@piefed.social 101 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

That's how it's supposed to be. Unfortunately, that is not how it is right now. To even try to restore those states rights, will take the courts. And even if the courts are willing to do their jobs properly, the process would take years and we'd be lucky to see it resolved before the 2028 elections.

This is Trump's modus operandi. Fuck shit up and when the courts try to sort it out, drag things out as long as possible so that by the time a decision is made, you've already done whatever you wanted to do in the first place.

Bottom line. Don't vote by mail because your vote will not be counted that way.

Edit to clarify their plan:

When election officials bring ballots to their USPS site for delivery, either the entire batch of ballot envelopes or a sampling will be physically scanned – depending on where the ballots are being dropped, according to the whistleblower. If just a single ballot envelope scan does not align with the information in the portal, USPS will refuse to deliver the entire batch of ballots while the discrepancy is being sorted out.

When you request a ballot for mail in voting, election officials mail it to you. The USPS plan is the hold up ballots before they are delivered to voters. If even one ballot is addressed to a voter/address that doesn't exactly match the USPS list of allowed voters, then the whole batch will be held up until they sort out the error. That sorting out will not doubt not be completed in time for you to get your ballot and fill it out.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 39 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Don't mail your ballot back. Do vote by mail, and hand deliver your ballot to an official ballot drop box.

[–] kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So if people can't mail in ballots, what about US citizens living abroad?

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They may be kinda screwed if they can't get back to take care of it in person.

[–] kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So, like, everyone currently deployed in the military?

Good way to cause a coup, but possibly.

[–] Manjushri@piefed.social 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No. That is not a solution. The USPS plan is to not deliver your ballot to you when you request it.

When election officials bring ballots to their USPS site for delivery , either the entire batch of ballot envelopes or a sampling will be physically scanned – depending on where the ballots are being dropped, according to the whistleblower. If just a single ballot envelope scan does not align with the information in the portal, USPS will refuse to deliver the entire batch of ballots while the discrepancy is being sorted out.

Emphasis mine. You can request a ballot, but there is every possibility that the ballot will never be delivered for you to fill out. Early voting is going to be a much more reliable way to insure that your vote has a chance of being counted.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 34 points 2 days ago (5 children)

That's why in CA, OR, and WA you can print out your ballot yourself. Fuck DeJoy with a rusty crowbar.

[–] Manjushri@piefed.social 20 points 2 days ago (3 children)

That's a great option. I wasn't aware of that.

[–] daychilde@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Fuck DeJoy with a rusty crowbar.

That’s a great option.

Just selectively quoting for the purposes of humor.

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[–] Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (8 children)

Absolutely this ! Do not trust the mail anymore.

[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I stopped trusting the mail for anything politicial ever since I participated in a postcard campaign for the 2024 election. I wrote a bunch of postcards to hundreds of people to remind them to vote, and I decided to write a few to my friends and family to verify that they were sent out. I stamped them, dropped them in the mailbox to be sent out on the day I was instructed to, and the 2024 election rolls around. I followed up with my friends and family to see if they got their postcards.

Not a single one received them.

Something undoubtedly fucky happened with the mail in 2024.

[–] Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That's why I've been saying that 2020 is likely the last free election this country ever had. Tons of pedo-fuckery happened in 2024 they'd made it their absolute goal to make voting nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

Fuck. All. Of. Them.

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[–] Triumph@fedia.io 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's in the fucking Constitution. There's no question here. Six Justices are traitors.

This will not be resolved by voting alone. (Edited for @Manjushri@piefed.social)

[–] Manjushri@piefed.social 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Voting has a much better chance of resolving this than not voting does. Voting is not perfect, but it's what we've got. Stop discouraging people from casting their vote.

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[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ideally, yes.

But the post service in the US is federalized under the USPS. And the USPS has been run by an orangeboi sycophant for about a decade at this point, who had made numerous changes to make mail ballots - both distribution and retrieval thereof - more strict and difficult, with the net effect of disenfranchising millions of voters.

Voter fraud is vanishingly rare.

Electoral fraud is a standard and commonly used strategy by the GOP in particular.

This is electoral fraud.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It'd be nice if we could use RICO laws to go after anyone in the USPS that is involved with doing this - the planning, the implementing, everything is swept up and given maximum penalty.

[–] MunkysUnkEnz0@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

One can dream, Nurnberg trial for the whole administration

God I hope the timeline pans out that way :|

[–] cenzorrll@piefed.ca 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This isn't about how States conduct their elections. Each state can have mail-in voting, there's nothing stopping them from conducting their elections that way. The problem, which this is all about, is that the States rely on a federal service to do the delivering of the ballots part, which is what is getting fucked about with.

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[–] dhork@lemmy.world 96 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

So that's the plan - when Democratic states don't comply to hand over their voter records, the postal service simply refuses to deliver their ballots from the Board of Elections. They can't vote if they never get the ballot in the first place.

[–] Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org 46 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And just like EVERYTHING else he ever does, it doesn't matter if it is blatantly illegal, against the constitution, violates everything, if we don't enforce it IMMEDIATELY then it is already too late and we are stuck with the consequences.

He shouldn't even BE president right now. He is illegal and illegitimate on account of commiting treason and insurrection. But no one enforced the law or constitution and so here we are.

And they are going to keep doing that until we say ENOUGH.

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[–] aramis87@fedia.io 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Even if they do deliver them, I'm sure the verification process will be incredibly slow in blue states, so that the ballots will arrive after voting day.

[–] brookenium@feddit.online 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is the heart of the plan. Postal delays ensuring these votes won't be counted. Nothing "illegal" about "incompetence".

[–] AmyAye@nord.pub 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Meanwhile on Facebook posts about this, bots are pushing memes about how "The Democrats can't cheat this time."

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[–] leadore@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

What they're going to do is "disappear" or delay mailed ballots based on the party the voter is registered as and/or their district and which way that district tends to vote. Not all of them, that would be too obvious. Just enough of them to tilt the election to the repubs.

Don't vote by mail at all if you have any other choice. If you do have a mail-in ballot, hand-deliver it to the election center (the place you would go to vote early) in your city or failing that, drop it in a ballot box, NOT a PO Box. If you're forced to do it by mail, mail it as soon as you possibly can, then I'm pretty sure there's a way you can call and verify it was received at the election center.

But again, don't vote by mail if at all possible. And if possible, go vote early rather than on Election Day--god only knows what they've got planned for that day. If you can, provide rides for people who need them so they can vote early too.

[–] KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 45 points 2 days ago

Must be Tuesday because that's another profound infringement of civil liberties.

[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 38 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

If there are discrepancies like addresses? That means my mail in ballot is going to be flagged, because my house is in address limbo (used to be an apartment but not anymore, and USPS has rejected packages being sent to me because I did not put "Apt 1" at the end of my address).

This is just going to disenfranchise those living between addresses and people caught in red tape living in apartment houses.

Truly a shit show. I'm voting in person from now until question marks.

[–] Manjushri@piefed.social 17 points 2 days ago

Truly a shit show.

As intended. This is not a well intended plan. The whole intention here is to disenfranchise voters because everyone knows, the move votes cast, the worse republicans do.

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[–] Alexfire@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There will be so many lawsuits over purposely caused issues and other crises by November, the court will cancel it all and maga will say it's just like Zelenskyy did so it's fine. Two months to see if wrong!

[–] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If we're not facing an active, actual, missiles-in-the-air, tanks-on-the-border invasion and they try to pull that shit, then they're even dumber than I thought.

[–] Arancello@aussie.zone 9 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The War with Canada (Special Military Operation) will provide the necessary justification

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[–] Aqivex@fedinsfw.app 19 points 2 days ago

Someone should mail all the postmasters and the inspectors a letter reminding them that the concept of qualified immunity doesn't belong to them, that dear leader probably can't even remember who the current postmaster general even is without being told, and that they are not insulated from the finding out.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Under the timeline sketched out to meet the September 1 deadline, there would only be four days allotted for it to go through a stage in the development process in which potential users of the system can test it out.

I work on a live service video game, where we're constantly releasing updates and new content. But our release pipeline length means new code doesn't go live until it has been under test for at least a couple months. Because if someone finds a bug, there's turnaround time to get it fixed, submitted, built, and re-tested, looking for any potential new issues that were introduced with the fix. That's for a GAME. The idea that they might implement a verification system for MILLIONS of voters across MULTIPLE STATES and only have four days to test it before going live is horrifying.

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 28 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Register as a Republican, and they won't screw with you. Then vote Democrat, and completely screw up their plans.

[–] zwerg@feddit.org 14 points 2 days ago (4 children)

They will claim massive voter fraud if there is a large discrepancy between registrations and votes.

[–] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They claim voter fraud every time anyway.

Hell Trump was complaining about fraud when he won. Twice.

[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

Confirms his goal is illegitimizing the idea of free and fair elections. Sowing doubt by claiming every single election that has taken place and will take place is fraudulent. Planting the seeds for the next J6.

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[–] trailee@sh.itjust.works 24 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The big benefit of mail in voting is that I don’t need to prepare in advance of going to the polls, or stand in a big line. I can sit down with my ballot at the kitchen table and read about issues or candidates as I fill it in. Once I’ve finished at my leisure, I take the ballot sealed in the return envelope and drop it off at a nearby polling place - most libraries are great for this and have drop boxes at the ready for a few weeks leading up to Election Day.

Even if I procrastinate to the last minute I can drop the sealed ballot at an in-person polling place on Election Day without waiting in the big line. Mail-in voting is still excellent even if you cut USPS out of the picture for the return portion. Maybe better to call it Mail-Out Voting and make that the standard.

Unless you’re out of state on deployment. Good luck getting Hegseth’s military to deliver any ballots.

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[–] 2hundredpancakes@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

... judge last week froze the mandates that the states use the system if they want USPS to deliver their ballots, but said USPS could still offer the portal to states that voluntarily want to upload the mail voter information. The Justice Department is appealing that ruling.

... USPS leadership was dismissive of concerns, and, according to the report “insisted that it was easy to understand what was needed and also that there was no time to write down the requirements.”

... When election officials bring ballots to their USPS site for delivery, either the entire batch of ballot envelopes or a sampling will be physically scanned – depending on where the ballots are being dropped, according to the whistleblower. If just a single ballot envelope scan does not align with the information in the portal, USPS will refuse to deliver the entire batch of ballots while the discrepancy is being sorted out.

Neat. I wonder whether they will even tell anyone when their ballots are invalidated.

[–] Didntdoit71@feddit.online 11 points 2 days ago

Probably not. They don't care, either way, as long as your valid ballot isn't counted, they win. Vote in person, if you can.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 18 points 2 days ago (2 children)

the courts should be looking at the legality of interfering with mail delivery. A federal offense. It should not require anything more to stop it. The post office is a long and hollowed tradition going back to the birth of the nation. I hate how often I look at our country and think this is nuts.

[–] Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

Hollowed is incorrect but aptly descriptive.

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"Shit show" is too charitable a term for something that's being sabotaged on purpose. How the fuck is it that people are still giving the Trump regime any sort of benefit of the doubt?!

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