Election officials warn mail-ballot rules could be virtually impossible to implement

Election officials across the United States are warning that new mail-ballot requirements could prove “virtually impossible” to put in place before November’s elections.

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Virtually impossible

Mail ballots will begin going to voters in several states in mid-September, and in one state by Friday. That leaves little time for officials to make the changes required under regulations issued by the U.S. Postal Service. Clerks in two Wisconsin municipalities have already sent ballots because state law permits them to do so once primary results are certified.

The Trump administration has described the requirements as “modest informational requirements” that “should not prevent a single voter from voting by mail.” Election officials and voting-rights advocates disagree. Anna Baldwin, director of voting rights litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, said the requirements would be “effectively impossible” to implement before 2026 without causing “mass disenfranchisement and ballot delays.” She said the rule would affect not only states, but the roughly 10,000 local jurisdictions that handle absentee-ballot procedures.

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Modest informational requirements

Court filings in a lawsuit brought by 24 Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia detail the scale of the task. A New York official said entering voters into a new portal would require more than 10 years of combined work by state and local employees. A California official said scanning an individual ballot for every voter in the state would take roughly 43 years, based on Postal Service estimates.

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Should not prevent a single voter from voting by mail.

The rule, published Aug. 21, requires mail-ballot envelopes to carry specific design elements, including voter-specific barcodes. State and local officials must also submit names, addresses and barcodes to an online Postal Service portal. A federal judge, Indira Talwani, has temporarily barred key parts of the measure from taking effect for the Nov. 3 elections and is considering whether to grant the states longer-term relief.

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The bottom line is that it is effectively impossible for these requirements to be implemented in advance of 2026 without causing mass disenfranchisement and ballot delays.