Lawmakers Blast Postmaster General Mail Ballots Threat: ‘Blatantly Illegal’
Lawmakers have slammed Postmaster General David Steiner after he announced that a proposed new rule would mean the United States Postal Service (USPS) won't deliver mail ballots unless states share their voter lists with the Trump administration.
Testifying before a Senate committee on Wednesday, Steiner was asked if USPS would still mail out ballots to states that refused to hand over their absentee voter lists. "No," he responded. “We would tell the state that we need the manifest."
Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told Steiner that the rule would “coerce” states into providing the administration with the sensitive voter information.
"This is basically a back-door way for the federal government to get voting information that states control under the U.S. Constitution,” Peters said at the hearing. “You’re telling the states, ‘Give the federal government this information—trust the federal government, trust the Trump administration, we’ll take good care of these—and if you don’t do it, you can’t mail absentee ballots.’ “You are going to make a decision that people cannot vote by mail. That’s unacceptable.”
https://www.newsweek.com/lawmakers-blast-usps-postmaster-general-mail-ballots-threat-blatantly-illegal-12116199