“Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner replied. “We would tell the state that we need the manifest.”
Peters called the proposed rule “unacceptable.”
“So the proposed rule basically coerces states to conform to these new requirements and hand over their absentee voter rolls, or face the consequences of not being able to vote by mail,” Peters said.
Steiner argued that the proposed rule would “make sure that we match the ballots that a state believes they’re sending out to what actually gets sent out.”
“All the state gives us is a list of here are the voters that are supposed to get ballots and here are the ballots. We then compare the two, make sure the ballots that are supposed to get sent, get sent,” Steiner said. “I would think that states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they think they’re sending out are the ballots that are actually being sent out.”
But Democrats have expressed concerns about Trump’s Executive Order and the Postal Service’s proposed rule, claiming that both are signs of the President trying to exert federal authority over elections. Trump has, on many occasions, made false claims about election fraud that he professed occurred via voting by mail.