Democracy Docket: Testimony by the top U.S. postal official Wednesday marked the first time that the United States Postal Service (USPS) attempted to publicly defend its plan to implement President Donald Trump’s anti-mail voting executive order.
But rather than trying to assuage concerns that Trump is using USPS as a vehicle to seize control of U.S. elections, Postmaster General David Steiner all but confirmed lawmakers, election officials and Postal Service advocates’ worst fears.
He told lawmakers that under a new proposed rule ordered by Trump, the Postal Service would not deliver mail-in ballots in states that refuse to hand over their voter rolls to the federal government.
Reacting to the hearing, Steve Hutkins, a retired New York University professor and a leading advocate for the USPS through savethepostoffice.com, told Democracy Docket that if the agency ultimately moves forward with the proposal, he believes “it will destroy the Postal Service.”
“It won’t just be tainted. Its whole brand will be destroyed. All those states — if they can’t do voting by mail in California or Oregon because they won’t give over the lists, that’ll be the end of the Post Office,” he said. “Those states are some of the strongest defenders of the Post Office.”
Hutkins added that he was disappointed in Steiner, saying the postmaster general minimized the significance of the proposal throughout the hearing.