An anonymous whistleblower report released by Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s office says USPS resumed work about a month ago on a 2026 mail-ballot vetting system that could wrongly reject large numbers of legitimate ballots.
The system would require officials to upload each voter’s data, generate unique barcodes and submit ballot batches to sample scans; under a zero-percent failure rule, one flagged ballot could force an entire batch back for reprocessing.
Election-law experts cited in the report say the technical and training burdens are severe, but they do not see clear evidence USPS is openly defying the Aug. 27 court order because IT development could be framed for 2028.
The rule remains blocked by a federal judge, and experts say the Supreme Court will likely decide before November whether USPS can proceed, with timing itself threatening major disruption.
If the justices allow the rule, mail voting could be hit hardest in states that rely heavily on it, though analysts say the partisan effect is uncertain and emergency workarounds could blunt some damage.