AN INSIGNIFICANT CHANGE? PART 1

IT MAY SEEM PETTY TO CAVIL ABOUT A SEEMINGLY INSIGNIFICANT CHANGE in postmark regulations, but  there’s good reason to suspect Trump and his intentions. Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, are tidbits on the matter gleaned from several sources.

Affecting a Tax Return, a Ballot. Tim McPhillips reports, “How This New Mail Rule Could Affect Your Ballot, Your Tax Return and More,” PBS News, January 5, 2025: “The rule, which went into effect on Christmas Eve, defines the meaning of a postmark, the date printed or stamped on most mailed items. In the past, the postmark generally indicated the date the USPS received the item. Now, it will explicitly mean the date that the USPS processes the item.”

My italics; see the USPS statement below. 

McPhillips cites the Postal Service reasoning: The update “does not change any existing postal operations or postmarking practices, but is instead intended to improve public understanding of postmarks and their relationship to the date of mailing.”

Hmm…. Read on.

However, McPhillips notes, “While it seems like a small tweak, the rule raises major questions for legal and administrative systems that rely on postmarks to indicate when something was mailed. One example: mail-in ballots.”

Trump on Mail-In Ballots. Back last year, Ashley Lopez and Ari Shapiro recounted, “Trump Announces on Truth Social That He’ll Ban Mail-In Voting and Voting Machines,” NPR, August 18, 2025.

Image from Instagram. 

From a transcript of Lopez and Shapiro’s “All Things Considered” program: “(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We, as the Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt.”

“LOPEZ: Trump also said this morning that states are agents of the federal government and that he therefore has the power to tell them how to run elections.”

“SHAPIRO: But that’s just false. It’s not true. So what is the truth?” 

“LOPEZ: Yeah. I spoke to several legal experts about this, and they said, yep, this is not true. There really aren’t multiple takes on this. The Constitution is quite clear that the regulation of elections is the power of the states and only Congress can change that.”

“RICHARD HASEN [UCLA law professor]: So unless the president has some theory under which he could try to ban certain kinds of voting machines or try to ban mail-in ballots by enforcing some existing federal law, he would need the cooperation of Congress—which I think he’d be unlikely to get—to have any kind of federal interference with how the midterm elections will be run.” 

On the other hand, Trump hasn’t relied on Congress thus far, beyond fawning acquiescence. Tomorrow in Part 2, we’ll open with some USPS propaganda, followed by more of McPhilip’s analyses. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026