Whistleblower Warns USPS Ballot System Could Disrupt Vote

The lawyer for a federal whistleblower has warned that a U.S. Postal Service plan to implement President Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting could prevent ballots from reaching voters, as the midterm election season officially begins this week. David Kligerman, an attorney at Whistleblower Aid representing the anonymous official, told NPR’s Morning Edition that the USPS verification system operates on a “zero percent failure rate” that is “unprecedented” in the mail system.

“You’ve got a 0% failure rate, which, by the way, is unprecedented. No other part of the mail system has this,” Kligerman said. “This is a solution that does not meet the problem. If you want to verify to whom it’s sent to, there’s a very different way to do it than this.”

The Federal Ballot Mail Portal

The whistleblower disclosure, released September 1 through Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s office, details how the USPS has been building an online portal that would allow state election officials to submit absentee voters’ names and ballot envelope barcodes as required by Executive Order 14399, signed by Trump on March 31. The order directs USPS to deliver mail ballots only to voters on state-provided lists, a departure from its traditional role of delivering all mail.

According to the whistleblower, the verification process is unforgiving: if even one barcode in a batch of up to 10,000 ballots fails to scan properly, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state. “As designed, the process is entirely unforgiving,” the disclosure states. “It could delay ballots by the thousands in repeated verification cycles — and thus prevent states from mailing enormous numbers of ballots.”

Rushed Development and Court Violations

The whistleblower alleges the IT system was built in roughly three months — including a court-ordered pause — rather than the year normally needed, and that the full system was not assembled for testing until about August 24. USPS officials reportedly described the development process as “a shit show,” according to the disclosure, which was also covered by The Guardian.

The disclosure further claims that USPS continued work on the portal despite active court orders blocking implementation. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani found on August 25 that USPS violated a preliminary injunction, writing that “despite the Defendants’ protestations that the United States takes its obligation to comply with court orders very seriously, the court finds that Defendants violated the preliminary injunction in this case.” The finding was detailed in coverage by Democracy Docket.

Legal Battle Continues

A federal judge in Boston issued a 14-day temporary restraining order on August 27 blocking USPS from implementing the new requirements. The Trump administration has appealed to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a hearing on a preliminary injunction is scheduled for September 3. The Supreme Court ruled on August 24 in California v. Trump that the states’ lawsuit was premature before USPS issued its final rule, but the high court has not ruled on the legality of the executive order itself. The Brennan Center for Justice has been tracking the litigation closely.

Political Reactions

Sen. Blumenthal said the disclosure reveals that “the Postal Service has designed a system that is intended to fail.” In a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner, he wrote that “the whistleblower’s allegations make clear that USPS lacks the technical or operational capability needed to effectively implement the EO’s provisions in a way that safeguards every citizen’s right to vote in the upcoming midterm elections.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, echoed those concerns, saying “this new secret tracking system at the US Postal Service is faulty, untested, and threatens to totally disrupt ballot delivery for millions of American citizens.” His comments were reported by ABC News.

USPS Response

In a statement released September 1, USPS said it is “carefully reviewing” the whistleblower’s concerns. The agency noted that “the Postal Service is now finalizing the portal and will soon make it available to election officials who voluntarily wish to familiarize themselves with the platform.” USPS has maintained that its work has “at all times been conducted in a manner consistent with court orders.”

What’s at Stake

Mail-in voting for the midterms was set to officially begin the week of September 1, with the first ballots going out to overseas military voters from North Carolina on September 4. Approximately one-third of voters cast ballots by mail in the 2024 election. The whistleblower’s disclosure warns that “potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all” if the system proceeds as designed.

With the November 3 midterm elections approaching, the legal and operational uncertainty surrounding USPS’s ballot verification system remains unresolved. The September 3 hearing before Judge Talwani will be a critical next step in determining whether the new requirements can take effect in time for the election — and whether the concerns raised by the whistleblower will prove prescient.