MAIL-IN DISPUTE: Indiana backs Trump in expanding USPS election role; other states decry federal overreach

By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
August 7, 2026

Indiana is among 12 states joining the Trump administration in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the U.S. Postal Service to move forward with implementing new policy that would essentially give the post office the power to determine which voters are eligible to cast a mail-in ballot.

The USPS voter policy is part of the Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections executive order President Donald Trump issued in March. Based on the administration’s unsubstantiated claims of noncitizens registering and voting in elections, the order calls for the creation of a State Citizenship List of U.S. citizens over the age of 18 and for USPS to implement a verification procedure to ensure only eligible voters cast ballots by mail.

Immediately after the executive order was issued, 22 states plus the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro filed a lawsuit.

The U.S. District Court for Massachusetts subsequently blocked the federal agencies from implementing key provisions in the executive order prior to the November midterm election. When the 1^st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s ruling, the Trump administration sought an emergency stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 12 states joined as intervenors to the Trump administration’s appeal to the nine justices and filed an application for a stay of the district court’s ruling. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Indiana Solicitor General James Barta signed the stay application along with attorneys general from the other states.

The intervening states took issue with what they called the “bizarre injunction” and argued that they and the federal government are being harmed by its prevention of the implementation of the executive order. The states asserted they are disadvantaged because they cannot access the State Citizenship List and are not benefiting from the USPS reforms that could strengthen the security of mail-in voting.

Conversely, the states fighting the executive order opposed the applications for a stay filed by the Trump administration and the intervening states, arguing the provisions in the executive order are unconstitutional. Also, they asserted implementing Trump’s order just months before the midterm election could sow confusion among voters and would be a federal overreach into the states’ province of administering elections. The president’s order also would impose “unnecessary burdens on lower courts asked to resolve last-minutes disputes,” those states said.

Fifty-six former federal judges sided with the opposition states in an amicus brief and urged the Supreme Court to deny the request for the emergency stay. Among the signees was Retired 7^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Diane Wood.

The judges asserted the executive order creates “serious invasions” of state sovereignty, and “intrudes on authority” over elections that the U.S. Constitution assigns to the states. Granting the stay, the judges wrote, would impose “burdensome new requirements on state and local election officials simply because the President wishes to impose them.”

To date, the U.S. Supreme Court has not issued any decision on the applications for a stay from the Trump administration and the 12 states.

Expanding role of USPS in elections

Under the president’s executive order, the USPS was given two primary tasks related to elections.

First, the postal service must establish rules to require all mail-in and absentee ballots sent through the post office be put into special envelopes, marked as “Official Election Mail,” that have barcodes so the documents can be tracked. Second, USPS is permitted to transmit ballots only to eligible voters, identified by the states and included on the Mail-In and Absentee Participation List.

Although the Hoosier State heavily restricts mail-in voting, only allowing individuals who meet certain criteria to drop a ballot in the mailbox, a majority of the other states either offer no-excuse absentee voting or conduct their elections solely by mail. Nationally, USPS delivered nearly 100 million mail ballots in 2024, with roughly 30% of all voters across the country casting ballots by mail, according to court documents.

Indiana and the other intervening states advocating for a stay took issue with the timing, asserting the preliminary injunction was premature because the rulemaking regarding USPS has not been finalized.

The executive order does not require the USPS to adopt a specific policy but rather directs the postal service to initiate a rulemaking process for the handling of mail-in and absentee ballots, Indiana and the other states said in their application for a stay.

Also, the states contended, USPS is still taking comments on its proposal and has not issued any final rule. As an example, the states said that contrary to what the litigants hypothesized in their lawsuit, the postal service’s proposed rule gives states control over which voters are included on the Mail-In and Absentee Participation List.

Indiana and the other states argued that they “have a concrete interest in ensuring that mail-in ballots cast by their voters are securely delivered and counted. Allowing the federal government to promulgate final rules advancing election integrity reforms enhances the ability of States to ensure the security of mail voting within their jurisdictions. And State Defendants cannot themselves implement some of these commonsense proposed reforms – such as improved USPS delivery systems for election mail.”

The states fighting the executive order countered the USPS is at risk of being turned from “a public service institution into a partisan instrument.”

In their filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, the states argued that Congress has never authorized USPS to take the steps authorized by the executive order, which includes imposing design requirements for state ballot envelopes, compiling lists of voters eligible to vote by mail, ensuring the mail-in ballots are going only to the voters on those lists, and refusing to deliver ballots to voters not who are not listed.

“The challenged EO’s transformation of USPS’ role would not only depart markedly from our Nation’s tradition of decentralizing the administration of elections but also pose extraordinary threats to our democracy,” the opposition states argued. “Voters would likely be disenfranchised, as officials inevitably make mistakes in rushing to formulate new voter lists and rollout untested technologies to scan ballots for eligibility determinations.”

Concerns about the citizenship list

Other provisions in Trump’s executive order are stirring concerns.

As part of the order, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, along with the Social Security Administration, is to compile the State Citizenship List. The DHS is directed to pull the names of all U.S. citizens who will be 18 at the time of the upcoming federal election from federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security records, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database and other federal sources of data. At least 60 days before each federal election, the list will be given to the states.

In conjunction with the creation of the list, the executive order directs the U.S. attorney general to investigate and prosecute state and local officials who issue federal ballots to individuals not eligible to vote.

Indiana and the other intervening states contended the creation of the list is not causing any harm because state election officials are not required to participate. The order does not mandate state officials to take specific action or expend any resources for the creation of the list.

Also, the intervening states asserted the directive to the attorney general does not impose any harm and the fear of prosecution is “subjective and irrational.”

“It is hard to image such prosecutions happening given the (opposition states) do not dispute that, under federal and state law, only of-age United States citizens can vote and that the provision of fraudulent ballots is unlawful,” the intervening states wrote in their application for a stay.

The opposing states asserted the citizenship list is the Trump administration’s attempt to circumvent Congress. Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002, states are recognized as having the responsibility for maintaining voter rolls and verifying voter eligibility. President Trump has not been successful in convincing Capitol Hill to change the voting laws so now, the states argued, he is using an executive order to bypass “the people’s elected representatives in Congress.”

Also, the opposing states inferred the directive to the attorney general was unprecedented in its imposition of federal involvement in how states administer elections.

In their filing, they said to their knowledge, “the federal government has never before threatened state and local elections officials with criminal prosecution for failing to carry out their elections-administration responsibilities in the way that federal officials prefer.”

Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal. 

The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.