Following New Whistleblower Disclosure, Blumenthal Demands USPS Provide Documents, Answers About

[WASHINGTON, DC] – After receiving information from a whistleblower, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), wrote Postmaster General David Steiner demanding answers and documents about the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) rushed and potentially unlawful implementation of President Trump’s Executive Order seeking to restrict mail-in voting. “This brave whistleblower has come forward with disturbing details about USPS’ seemingly illegal plot to interfere in November’s midterms,” Blumenthal said. “Their system is set up to fail – and risk the right to vote for millions of Americans who cast their ballots by mail. Given this new information, such sloppiness and haste seems clearly part of a purposeful attempt to create chaos and prevent people from voting. I am demanding answers and accountability.” “The crown jewel of American democracy—our historic record of free and fair elections—deserves better than this reckless, slapdash effort,” said David Kligerman, Senior Vice President and Special Counsel at WhistleblowerAid.org, which represents the anonymous whistleblower. “Given this administration’s record on curtailing voting rights, these glaring issues in the ballot mail program raise a troubling question: are these bugs—or features? Now that these malignant flaws have been exposed by a brave whistleblower, the administration can choose to fix this dangerously haphazard program or barrel ahead toward a wholly preventable electoral disaster.” An anonymous whistleblower disclosure provided to Blumenthal includes new details about USPS’s attempts to build an online system, known as “the Portal,” and accompanying IT which will be used to screen ballots submitted by state election officials prior to USPS agreeing to mail them to voters. According to this whistleblower, USPS began work on the Portal a mere three-and-a-half months before it was meant to be deployed and has not put it through the standard testing an online system and its related IT like this typically requires. USPS has also reportedly implemented an impracticable zero percent failure rate that could result in a massive number of rejected ballots with no opportunity for appeal. Among other information, the whistleblower’s disclosure reveals: USPS had plans to launch the Portal by today, September 1, 2026. USPS began building the Portal on or around June 15, 2026, just five months before the November 2026 midterm elections and less than four months before its planned rollout date to state election officials. USPS was only able to begin to connect the various constituent parts which would comprise the system as a whole, on or about the week of August 24, 2026. “The project violates standard principles of testing and debugging new software before launch” and both individual parts of the Portal and the accompanying IT as a whole have not undergone meaningful testing. The teams building the new Portal and accompanying IT were “siloed” such that “when elements were brought together, the teams were unaware of various developments, creating more work.” There are also “no clear written requirements” leaving workers to “glean requirements from opaque comments at meetings.” As late as August 21, 2026, workers were still receiving new requirements for the project. Without clear guidance, “[d]ifferent team members continued to have different understandings of how the system is supposed to work.” As teams scrambled ahead of the planned launch, the whistleblower is aware of multiple USPS officials describing the development process as “a shit show.” USPS adopted a zero-percent failure threshold, meaning that “if a barcode scanner fails to correctly read one barcode in a batch, the entire batch is rejected and returned to the state.” Despite the potentially widespread and catastrophic implications of this policy, “USPS does not have a clear policy as to how many ballots will be sampled in ballot mail batches.” The project was halted due to a court order and an injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in late June 2026. Several weeks later, on or around July 29, 2026, however, “the project was suddenly resumed without explanation of what authority permitted USPS to ignore the court order.” In April, Blumenthal joined U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) in introducing the Absentee and Mail Voter Protection Act (Absentee MVP Act), which would block President Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional executive order attacking mail and absentee ballots and protect the right to vote by mail. Blumenthal’s letter to Postmaster General Steiner, which includes the whistleblower’s disclosure, is available here and copied below. Dear Postmaster General Steiner, My office is in receipt of an alarming whistleblower disclosure (the “Disclosure”) outlining the United States Postal Service’s (“USPS”) perilously rushed and potentially unlawful implementation of President Trump’s Executive Order seeking to restrict mail-in voting. [1] The whistleblower’s allegations make clear that USPS lacks the technical or operational capability needed to effectively implement the EO’s provisions in a way that safeguards every citizen’s right to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. Despite this, the Trump Administration appears intent on USPS moving forward with its flawed plans, no matter the chaos they may create. [2] The whistleblower’s allegations also provide disturbing information suggesting that USPS may have violated a court order by continuing to implement the EO despite being ordered to cease all such work. We urge you to abandon this ill-conceived, unconscionable plan and ensure that all Americans can exercise their constitutional right to vote, including by mail, without interference by USPS. Historically, although USPS has issued guidance on various issues related to election ballots sent through the mail, like recommendations for ballot envelope design, it has not imposed specific rules or procedures that state election officials were required to follow in order to have USPS deliver ballot mail to voters. Under a new final rule issued on August 26, 2026 (the “Rule”), USPS will, for the first time, play a gatekeeping function and be in a position to refuse to mail ballots that state election officials have determined should be sent out. [3] This change is a marked and deeply troubling departure from USPS’s traditionally restrained role as a mail carrier. The whistleblower’s Disclosure describes an unprecedented process that allows USPS to decide whether ballots issued by state election officials should be mailed. To do so, USPS is building an entirely new online system, the USPS Federal Ballot Mail Portal and related IT systems (the “Portal”), which will be used to screen ballots submitted by state election officials prior to USPS agreeing to mail them to voters. The Disclosure identifies problems at every stage of USPS’s development of the Portal, demonstrating deeply flawed plans for implementation. According to the whistleblower, USPS’s effort to develop and deploy the Portal has been “rushed,” “risky and haphazard” because leadership has demanded an impossible timeframe. [4] In an effort to meet impossible deadlines, USPS has eliminated standard and needed testing, thereby creating substantial risk of a “catastrophic failure” of the system that could “derail the midterm elections.” [5] USPS began work building the Portal on or around June 15, 2026 just three months before the date USPS planned to launch the system and just five months before the November 2026 midterm elections. [6] On or about June 25, 2026, USPS ordered work on the Portal to cease due to a court order enjoining implementation of the EO. [7] That work stoppage persisted for approximately a month, further reducing the time that USPS had to build the new system. [8] According to the whistleblower, building the information technology infrastructure necessary to complete the Portal could take a year or more. [9] Yet, USPS leadership demanded that the Portal be completed for a launch date of September 1, 2026, less than six months after the EO was issued. [10] As a result of this rushed process, USPS has been unable to conduct tests of the Portal to ensure its proper functioning, troubleshoot problems, or distribute instructions on use to state election officials. According to the whistleblower, the Portal “violates standard principles of testing and debugging new software before launch.” [11] Normal procedures at USPS for such systems include internal testing, customer acceptance testing, and a final development stage before release to public facing users. [12] The Portal has gone through none of these basic checks. Not only is this system astonishingly untested, USPS has simultaneously implemented an impracticable zero percent failure rate. [13] When ballots are submitted to USPS in large-volume batches, if any one ballot in the batch cannot be verified against the Portal, all ballots in that batch will be rejected. For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to USPS and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the Portal – because, for example, someone has recently changed their name after marriage or they’ve moved – then USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,999 ballots as well. As the whistleblower notes, “USPS expects the state to take back the entire batch to cure the issue with the single ballot…” [14] Should the slapdash Portal mistakenly mark a ballot as unverified, there is no clear process by which state election officials or voters themselves can challenge the rejection. The Rule simply vaguely states that they “will be informed of the escalation procedures should they decide to challenge a rejection.” [15] Voters intending to cast ballots by mail may not even be aware that their ballots have been rejected, or were part of a rejected batch, until it is too late to secure an alternative ballot or vote in person. Expecting a well-built, thoughtful Portal to return an accurate result 100 percent of the time is already a stretch—expecting a “rushed,” “risky and haphazard” Portal to do the same is a recipe for disaster. These risks are compounded by other revelations in the Disclosure. USPS leadership has shown an incredible lack of effective management while building the Portal including siloed work streams, changing requirements, competing understandings of work output, and multiple actors having ownership of the same unique tasks. For example, there was little or no communication among teams working on the project to such an extent that “when elements were brought together, the teams were unaware of various developments, creating more work.” [16] Shockingly, there are also “no clear written requirements” for the information technology and infrastructure of the Portal, leaving workers to “glean requirements from opaque comments at meetings.” [17] As late as August 21, 2026, workers were still receiving new requirements for the project. [18] Without clear guidance, “[d]ifferent team members continued to have different understandings of how the system is supposed to function which caused ongoing and greater confusion among the group,” substantially increasing the risk that the system will fail and, ultimately, disenfranchise voters. [19] Each of these problems: rushed development; a zero percent failure rate; and poor management are cause for concern on their own. Taken together they present a clear picture of a fatally flawed process that cannot and will not protect American voters. Put plainly: this process will likely lead to chaos, confusion, and the inability of many Americans to have their vote counted. Finally, in addition to these significant concerns about the impact of the EO on Americans’ right to vote, I am troubled by allegations that USPS continued work on the Portal despite numerous court orders enjoining it from doing so. On June 25, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts enjoined USPS, among other executive branch agencies, from implementing Section 3 of the EO as to the twenty-three states and the District of Columbia that had challenged the order. [20] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling on July 25, 2026. [21] USPS was also enjoined from “implementing, giving effect to, or enforcing Section 3” of the E.O. nationwide pursuant to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts August 11, 2026 order. [22] It was not until August 24, 2026, that the Supreme Court stayed the June 25, 2026 injunction imposed on USPS by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, [23] and August 26, 2026 when the August 11, 2026 order was lifted. [24] Based on this timeline, USPS should have ceased all work on the Portal on June 25, 2026, with the earliest conceivable date to resume being August 26, 2026. The whistleblower allegations demonstrate that was not the case, with USPS directing work to continue on the Portal after the first court order to cease work and prior to the recent court decisions allowing USPS to proceed. [25] This pattern of defiance of court orders is particularly concerning in light of the Temporary Restraining Order issued on August 27, 2026, that has again halted USPS from performing any work on the Portal for 14 days. [26] Every eligible American citizen must be able to exercise their right to vote, unencumbered by unlawful obstacles this Administration and USPS seem intent on putting in their way. Given the rapidly approaching election and to determine whether USPS’s actions may impede that fundamental right, please provide the following information immediately, and in no case later than September 4, 2026: Please state whether USPS has halted work to implement the Executive Order, in compliance with the August 27, 2026 TRO. Please provide the date on which USPS instructed its employees and/or its contractors to begin work implementing the new Rule including the development of the Portal; Please list the individuals and their respective titles involved in issuing instructions to USPS employees and/or contractors on developing the Portal; Please list the position titles of all individuals involved in developing the Portal; Please name any and all entities USPS has contracted with to develop the Portal; Please indicate whether USPS will perform beta testing on Portal; If so, when will such testing begin? Are there procedures in place under the Portal to identify and remedy false positives, whereby the verification system incorrectly deems a voter as unverified and fails to transmit a ballot? What is the timeframe to rectify such false positives? Please indicate when USPS anticipates launching the Portal for useby state election officials; Has USPS engaged with any state officials on the development or use of the Portal? If so, please list the names and positions of those state officials are Please list the dates on which USPS or its contractors worked on the Portal. Did USPS or its contractors continue development of the Portal at any time when a court order was in place enjoining the implementation of Section 3 of the EO? If so, please provide the specific dates on which those activities occurred; If so, please provide the rationale behind USPS’s decision to continue work in defiance of a court order Please also provide the following records [27] by September 8, 2026: All records or communications regarding the original plans for and development of the Portal and any initial estimates of the amount of time that would be necessary to develop the system; All records or communications regarding the date on which the Portal would need to be completed and ready for use; All records or communications regarding the Portal’s potential flaws or vulnerabilities; All records or communications regarding a zero percent failure rate requirement for the Portal; and All legal opinions or other communications regarding the legal permissibility of USPS developing the Portal while federal court orders enjoining implementation of Section 3 of the EO are in place. -30- [1] Executive Order No. 14399, 91 FR 17125, (2026). [2] See Ballot Mail for Federal Elections, 91 Fed. Reg. 32,915 (Aug. 26, 2026) (to be codified at 39 C.F.R. pt. 111); [3] Id. [4] Disclosure Letter to Senator Blumenthal from Anonymous Whistleblower Re: USPS Rushed Implementation of New and Untested IT Systems Threatens U.S. Ballot Mail Delivery, (Aug. 29, 2026), 4. [5] Id. [6] Id. at 16. [7] Id. at 12. [8] Id. at 13. [9] Id. at 6. [10] Id. at 7. [11] Id. at 7. [12] Id. at 7. [13] Id. at 9-12. [14] Id. at 10. [15] Ballot Mail for Federal Elections, supra note 2, at 58. [16] Disclosure Letter to Senator Blumenthal, supra note 1, at 18. [17] Id. at 17. [18] Id. at 19. [19] Id . at 17. [20] California v. Trump , No. 26-cv-11581 (D. Mass. June 25, 2026). [21] California v. Trump , No. 26-1774 (1st Cir. July 25, 2026). [22] League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump , No. 26-cv-11549 (D. Mass. Aug. 11, 2026). [23] Alabama et. al, v. California et al. , No. 26A139, (U.S. Aug. 24, 2026). [24] League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump , supra note 22. [25] Disclosure Letter to Senator Blumenthal, supra note 1, at 12. [26] League of Women Voters of Massachusetts v. Trump , supra note 22. [27] “Records” include any written, recorded, or graphic material of any kind, including letters, memoranda, reports, notes, electronic data (emails, email attachments, and any other electronically-created or stored information), calendar entries, inter-office communications, meeting minutes, phone/voice mail or recordings/records of verbal communications, and drafts (whether or not they resulted in final documents).