Imagine this: The U.S. Postal Service sending lists to states saying who is allowed to vote. Prosecutions of local elected officials who don’t follow new federal voting procedures. The end of Washington state’s longstanding practice of counting ballots received after Election Day.
There’s a chance those could all be reality by November’s midterm elections, as conservatives in Washington, D.C., seek major changes to voting that could radically alter Washington state’s longstanding vote-by-mail system.
As part of an executive order issued by President Donald Trump, the U.S. Postal Service is undertaking a rule-making process that would spell out requirements for state election ballots and grant it authority to hand out lists to states saying who can vote. The Postal Service would use a list of U.S. citizens held by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to review who can have a ballot, according to the proposed rule.
Meanwhile, a case before the U.S. Supreme Court — Watson vs. RNC — could end the counting of mail ballots past Election Day. That case has been heard, and a ruling is expected any day.
The president, who votes by mail, has long railed against mail balloting. Trump has kept that up in his second term. Last year, he issued an executive order that’s been largely struck down by the courts and has pushed Republicans in Congress, unsuccessfully, to restrict mail balloting. The president has insisted he has authority over the states.
“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” the president posted on social media in August 2025. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”
That post is cited in a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s latest executive order, brought by 22 states, including Washington, seeking to stop the order.
“The Constitution and subsequent authority from the courts and from Congress make it pretty explicitly clear that states get to decide how to run their elections,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, said in an interview with The Seattle Times.
“The idea that the president would have independent authority to create a national database of eligible voters … is a totally made-up claim of authority that is just illegal,” he added.
At least one Washington Republican, U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, is uncomfortable with the Postal Service’s proposed rule-making.
The Republican from Spokane voted for the president’s proposed election reforms in Congress and said he agrees with some of the administration’s worries that states like Washington lack safeguards to keep noncitizens from voting.
But “I don’t think that it’s the proper role of the Postal Service to be at the tip of the spear as the implementing agent to enact needed changes and safeguards in voter systems,” Baumgartner said. “That needs to be done by Congress and in the courts.”
‘All lawful steps’
Voter fraud occasionally happens, including when people cast votes in more than one state, or when they cast ballots for dead people. But documented cases of voter fraud are extremely rare.
Consider the 2016 and 2018 general elections. In those, the secretary of state’s office in Olympia identified 216 cases of potential fraud. That works out to about 0.003% of the 6.5 million ballots cast.
Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation has kept a long-running database of proven instances of voter fraud. Its list identifies 15 instances of fraud in Washington between 2004 and 2025.
For the entire United States, the Heritage Foundation has recorded just 1,620 instances of fraud going back to 1982, which would swing very few elections.
That has not stopped conspiracy theories. In 2020, Republican gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp sued the state, alleging that he lost to Democrat Jay Inslee because of widespread voter fraud. He fell short by 545,000 votes.
Culp’s attorney later withdrew the lawsuit after the state threatened to sanction him for a meritless claim. Ultimately, the Washington state Supreme Court suspended his law license for a year for making frivolous claims.
Recently, the Washington state Republican Party put forth claims without evidence that the recent mayoral primary in Los Angeles was stolen, a claim that drew a rebuke from one of the party’s own former state chairs.
Among other things, proposed Postal Service rules would create standards for election mail for states, including a new federal barcode for ballots that get sent to voters, according to the proposed rule.
It would also give the Postal Service power to send to each state election official a “Participation List,” saying who would be allowed to vote, which could be tracked with those bar codes.
Having lists and bar codes will “allow law enforcement officials to compare the total number of mailed ballots to the total number of received ballots to detect potential issues meriting further investigation,” according to the proposed rule.
The public can give the federal government comments on the proposed rule through July 2.
Trump’s executive order calls for the U.S. Attorney General’s Office and other agencies to “take all lawful steps to deter and address noncompliance with Federal law.”
That could include withholding federal funds from states that don’t comply and prosecuting states for printing and mailing election ballots that don’t comport to federal standards.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, called the proposal “blatantly against the Constitution.”
In addition to the lawsuit against Trump’s executive order, he said, “we’re also prepared to take legal action against the U.S. Postal Service if they enact this rule.”
‘Unnecessary and problematic’
It’s a truism in Washington elections that the winners are rarely known on election night. That’s because elections officials are still receiving and counting ballots coming through the mail and in drop boxes.
That could end — for federal elections, at least — depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Watson vs. RNC.
In Washington state, a ballot postmarked on Election Day or before can be received and still counted up to 20 days after the election.
Baumgartner supports ending the practice of counting ballots received after Election Day, saying the perception of fraud is a threat to Americans’ trust in elections.
State and local officials are already preparing for a ruling that shortens the time election ballots can be counted. Generally speaking, about 250,000 ballots in Washington state come in after Election Day, Hobbs said.
“That’s the type of mindset we have to change now,” he said.
In case it’s needed, the state has created a public-messaging campaign urging people to use drop boxes and get ballots in early.
“I believe there will be increased use of drop boxes,” Hobbs said.
Meanwhile, King County Elections is working to try and add up to eight more drop boxes to collect election ballots, said Kendall Hodson, chief of staff for the office.
As for the Postal Service’s proposed rule, Hodson said: “Unsurprisingly we find it unnecessary and problematic.”
