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Whistleblower Says Rushed USPS Ballot Portal Could Put Millions of Mail Votes at Risk

The disclosure warns untested barcode checks could delay or withhold large batches of mail ballots ahead of the midterms.

A mail-in ballot, during the Pennsylvania primary election, is displayed in this illustration picture created in Philadelphia on May 19, 2026.
An election worker processes mail-in ballots at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center during California's state primary election in the City of Industry, California, on June 2, 2026. © Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
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Poll workers gather bins of ballots to be counted and filed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A U.S. Postal Service whistleblower is warning that the agency is developing an untested system that, if implemented, could prevent millions of voters from getting ballots this November.

Overview

  • The anonymous USPS whistleblower disclosure, released Tuesday by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, says the agency raced to build a Federal Ballot Mail Portal with little documentation or testing and continued work despite earlier court orders.
  • The complaint describes a 'zero-percent failure' verification design that treats any barcode or scan mismatch as grounds to reject an entire batch of ballots, which could hold back thousands of votes while officials resolve errors.
  • U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani has issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking key provisions of the USPS rule and found the agency violated a prior pause, and the Justice Department is appealing with fast-track court dates likely to follow.
  • State and local election officials warn the new envelope and barcode requirements are impractical to meet before early mailings in places such as North Carolina and that postal staff have not been trained to run the new checks.
  • Democratic lawmakers, voting-rights groups and privacy advocates are demanding inspector general and congressional investigations, and legal challenges from multiple parties are expected to determine whether the rules can be enforced before November.