Postmaster General David Steiner stoked fears among Democrats and voting rights groups this week after confirming the U.S. Postal Service will no longer deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to provide sensitive voter data to the federal government.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on mail-in voting is becoming a point of contention ahead of November’s general election. Critics have sounded the alarm on what they call the federal government’s attempt to overstep its authority. Some courts have agreed.

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the proposal from moving forward after a slate of Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit. 

Celina Stewart, chief executive officer of the League of Women Voters, said the postmaster general’s statement creates a “credibility issue.”

“The comments that he made are particularly concerning because voting is a right, and now it’s being presented as like this risk profile, and when access to the ballot starts being treated as suspicious behavior, which I think is the underlying thing here, democracy itself starts to be audited, I think, which is really problematic,” Stewart said.

“And if we think about why the Postal Service exists, it’s to serve the public, not to serve as a data pipeline for political agendas.”

President Trump issued an executive order in March directing the agency to propose a rule requiring states to provide a list to the Postal Service of eligible voters at least 60 days before any federal elections, in line with the president’s efforts to crack down on suspected mail-in voter fraud.

Lawmakers at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing last week asked about whether his agency will continue to mail ballots to states that refuse to comply with the Trump administration’s proposed rule. Steiner replied: “Under our proposed regulation, no.”

He defended the measure, saying it was to ensure that “the right ballots are going to the right people.”

“I would think that states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they think they’re sending out are the ballots that are actually getting sent out,” said Steiner, who reports to the Postal Service board of directors.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon (D) called the proposed rule “extremely problematic on a number of levels” at a panel discussion Wednesday, adding that it would not work with certain state laws governing elections.

“We’re 132 days from general elections, so to be talking about standing up this kind of apparatus now at this close date is something that I think elections administrators everywhere are very, very nervous about.”

The Constitution places the power of election administration on the states, and the executive branch has no authority over elections.

Eight states and Washington, D.C., allow their elections to take place entirely by mail, including California, Washington state, Utah and Colorado.

Steiner conceded the Postal Service does not have the power to administer elections. He instead characterized the rule as a procedural precaution to ensure ballots are being sent to eligible voters only.

David Becker, the founder and executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, pushed back on Steiner’s rationale, saying it would create unnecessary burdens for the states.

“The far better alternative is the status quo, which has worked incredibly well for the more than 150 years that we’ve been doing mail ballots,” he said. “The states do a remarkably good job of it. The postmaster general has no expertise, nor does the Postal Service, in assessing voter eligibility.”

He added that the system would be “impossible to implement” come November and was “almost designed to create chaos.”

Democratic lawmakers were quick to slam the proposed rule as illegal and a harm to democracy.

In a statement to The Hill, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) argued that neither Trump nor the postmaster general is “allowed to restrict access to the ballot box, including by restricting vote by mail.”

“Mail voting is safe, secure, and reliable,” Padilla said. “While this decision halting the USPS [U.S. Postal Service] rule-making that could have restricted access to mail ballots is a victory, we will continue to stay vigilant and push back against Donald Trump’s attempts to ‘take over’ elections.”

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) called the rule “blatantly illegal” and said it could “reduce participation in our democracy.”

And Steve Hutkins, a retired New York University professor who runs the website savethepostoffice.com, said the reputation of the postmaster general and Postal Service has already been harmed by this proposed rule.

“Even if this doesn’t happen, the newspapers are filled with articles with headlines saying things like the postmaster general says he won’t deliver mail ballots if the states don’t comply with Trump’s order,” he said. “That is so bad … it’s always one of the top two trusted agencies in the government.”

Trump’s March order has faced multiple lawsuits. One judge last month cleared the way for the order to proceed. But a federal judge on Thursday halted the order, siding with a coalition of almost two dozen states challenging the order seeking to create a federal voter roll and using the Postal Service to determine who can receive mail-in ballots.

Judge Indira Talwani, who was appointed by former President Obama, wrote in her opinion that the provisions in Trump’s order “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.”

The White House stood by the legality of the executive order.

“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement to The Hill. “The Civil Rights Act, National Voting Rights Act, and Help America Vote Act all give the Department of Justice full authority to ensure states comply with federal election laws, which mandate accurate state voter rolls.”

Trump has been a frequent critic of mail-in voting and has pushed false claims without evidence since he first ran for president in 2016. His claims of fraud became more vocal following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. 

He has referred to the practice as “mail-in cheating,” despite voting by mail himself in a Florida special election.

“The Trump administration continues to try to take election powers away from states despite repeated court losses,” Dax Goldstein, an Election Protection program director at the States United Democracy Center, said in a statement to The Hill. “Most recently, the administration attempted to push the Postal Service beyond its traditional role and into determining voter eligibility and overseeing how mail voting is administered.”

The Postal Service has undergone immense financial strains and operational challenges, with reported losses of $1.3 billion in its first quarter of fiscal 2026. Critics questioned whether the agency had the capability to even handle such a responsibility.

“That’s not USPS’s job. It’s a significant departure from how elections have always worked and raises serious concerns about executive overreach,” Goldstein said.

At the Wednesday hearing, prior to the ruling, Steiner reiterated that the Postal Service would comply with any court orders regarding voting by mail. 

Trump’s executive order directs the Postal Service to issue a final rule by the end of July. The proposal is undergoing a 30-day public comment period that began earlier this month. 

The Hill reached out to the Postal Service for comment.