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Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 195

Shake Up

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Trial Balloon · Ep. 195: Shake Up

The Mail Ballot Mess

August 30, 2026 · 2:18 pm ET · Leave a Comment

“The country’s first mail ballots for November are due to be sent out this week — but the method used by one-third of voters has a cloud of uncertainty hanging over it,” Politico reports.

“The prospect of new U.S. Postal Service rules to tighten up mail voting and demand voter lists from states, given new juice by a Supreme Court decision last week, could inject some last-minute logistical chaos into election administration.”

“For President Donald Trump, the USPS regulations would achieve the crackdown on mail voting he’s long sought in an effort to stamp out election fraud, despite a lack of evidence that such fraud exists on a broad scale. The Postal Service would refuse to deliver ballots for states that don’t comply. And the Justice Department has dismissed worries about the changes as ‘doomsday assumptions.'”

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Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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