The US Supreme Court ruled earlier this month to leave in place a lower court injunction halting President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting for the upcoming midterm election, delivering major relief to voting rights advocates while leaving long-term operational questions unresolved.
The high court’s decision blocks proposed US Postal Service regulations that would have required states to submit voter lists and add specific barcodes to ballot envelopes before processing mail-in ballots. Following the ruling, Postmaster General David Steiner confirmed that the agency has stopped implementing the ballot verification system.
For postal employees nationwide, the ruling provides immediate clarity as early voting gets underway.
Kimberly Karol, state president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, and a 32.5-year USPS veteran said she felt “profound relief” when she heard of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Postal employees are not in the business of deciding what the contents of a piece of mail is, outside of making sure it doesn’t have hazardous content,” Karol said. “The executive order was going to put us in the position of determining whether or not somebody could vote, and that’s not what a postal employee is supposed to do.”
‘Problematic and cumbersome’
Karol, who leads union representation for clerks and maintenance staff in smaller postal facilities across Iowa, emphasized that the order threatened the fundamental neutral service standards postal workers are expected to follow.
“A postal employee is supposed to treat every piece of mail equitably and just ensure that it gets to the address on that particular type of mail,” Karol said. “It was going to become problematic and cumbersome, and it was really going to put postal employees in a very bad position.”
What to know for the election
While the ruling ensures mail-in procedures remain uninterrupted for November, labor leaders caution that future election cycles could face similar legal challenges. To protect future elections, Karol urged Iowans to ensure they have a plan for voting in this election and to hold any elected officials standing in the way of the election process accountable.
“Put pressure on the postal regulatory commission and elected officials,” Karol said. “Every election has consequences, so I encourage everyone to vote. I encourage them to vote confidently by mail, if that’s what they choose. [Voting] will go a long way to potentially changing the threat to privacy and the sanctity of postal services.”
