Gary Peters Grills Postmaster General: What Authority Lets USPS Regulate How People Vote By Mail?

[0:00] proposed vote by mail rule published on june 2nd at the direction of the president [0:05] as i mentioned in my opening comments i believe should concern every american this rule marks [0:12] certainly an alarming departure from the postal services long-standing tradition of neutrally [0:19] delivering all types of mail you get a piece of mail an address on it you make sure it gets [0:23] delivered to that address is in a timely fashion you don't ask any other questions what this [0:31] basically rule will do is going to turn the postal service however into a ballot verification agency [0:37] that's going to would control basically a master database of every american absentee voter it would [0:44] also give the postal service new power to determine whose ballots get delivered i think the constitution [0:51] is clear elections are to be administered by the states not the federal government we have a tradition [0:58] of our local communities and states administering these elections and once again not the federal [1:05] government so my question for you is under what legal authority can the postal service regulate who [1:10] and how people can vote by mail yeah you know as you know our our regulations are proposed regulations [1:17] not final regulations um you know as to the authority i i used to be a lawyer but i was a business lawyer [1:24] not a constitutional lawyer and so i i would have to defer um that to the courts to to to understand the authority [1:31] well i think it's clear that in the there's nowhere in the constitution there's no federal law [1:36] uh that the postal service is authorized to create these types of voter databases ballot verification systems [1:43] or mandatory standards uh it just simply doesn't exist it's hard to interpret a law when it doesn't even exist there [1:50] which is what we have uh just because president trump wants to do this does not make it law doesn't make it [1:56] right doesn't make it constitutional there there's a certainly a massive difference between general mail [2:03] requirements and regulating elections routine changes to the postal network can have a small impact on election [2:11] mail but this effort is a power grab to swap constitutionally mandated state control for what the the president [2:20] wants i think it's very clear so last year mr steiner you issued a rule that explicitly said that the [2:26] postal service has quote no role uh in administering elections what is what has changed um i don't think [2:35] anything has changed you know uh senator i'm not a political person and the the postal service is not a [2:41] political organization we as you said i think you quite aptly said we deliver mail that's what we do we deliver [2:48] mail and um that's what ballots are ballots are mail now they are a special kind of mail obviously they need [2:56] special care and so years ago we recommended what we call kit 600 and kit 600 the fundamental premises of [3:04] kit 600 is a unique barcode and a unique envelope that allows us to move those ballots more efficiently [3:11] more securely that is what our proposed rules uh suggest is that we have unique barcode unique envelope and [3:22] that is not something that is new that's something that's been being used by states throughout the [3:28] country on both sides of the political spectrum so california has followed it oregon has followed it [3:35] arizona has followed it florida has followed it among many other states and so um you know to me [3:43] it's not a political question it's it's a question of how do we most efficiently and securely move [3:50] ballots we've been recommending this for for many years all this does is make it a requirement well well [3:59] certainly best practices are are different than having a mandatory requirement you could follow best [4:03] practices to deliver it more efficiently without having control of vast voter rolls and having the [4:09] ability to have that data this is basically a backdoor way for the federal government to get voting [4:14] information that states control under the u.s constitution so yes or no if if a state refuses to turn [4:20] their absentee voter list over to the federal government will the postal service still mail their ballots [4:26] under this proposal route under our proposed regulation no we would tell the state that we need the [4:32] manifest in order to you know look what what we're asking that that that's that's the answer you'd tell [4:38] no so the proposed rule basically coerces states to conform to these new requirements and hand over their [4:46] absentee voter rolls or face the consequences of not being able to vote by mail some states that's all [4:52] they do oregon is completely vote by mail if they say no we control the list the states control [4:58] the list we're not going to give oregon has followed kit 600 since the day they started voting by mail [5:03] this is a different issue this will be a lot different issue you're telling these states either [5:07] give the federal government this information trust the federal government trust the trump administration [5:13] we'll take good care of these and if you don't do it you can't mail absentee ballots you're going to [5:19] make a decision that people cannot vote by mail that's unacceptable well thank you mr chairman all that does [5:24] senator is make sure that we match the ballots that a state believes they're sending out to what actually [5:30] gets sent out right so all the state gives us is a list of here are the the voters that are supposed [5:37] to get ballots and here are the ballots we then compare the two make sure that that the ballots that [5:42] are supposed to be sent get sent you know if maryland had followed that they probably wouldn't be in [5:48] the problem they're in today so it is a much more efficient a much more effective way to make sure [5:54] that states i would think that states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they [6:01] think are sending out are the ballots that are actually being sent out well they do know what [6:06] they're dropping mail i think they can understand that they think if they put an address with their [6:11] voter rolls on a piece of mail for a ballot and give it to you they do expect you're actually going to [6:16] deliver it you don't have to say we want all of your information we want that information in our control [6:22] you mentioned maryland i think that was a printing error this this regulation wouldn't have done [6:26] nothing to fix what happened in maryland the states control their own elections that's pretty clear in [6:33] the constitution and an effort by this administration to nationalize elections and have the federal [6:38] government having this information is incredibly dangerous precedent you can imagine sharing this [6:43] information with the department of homeland security and using this these lists for a variety of [6:49] nefarious purposes we need to protect the integrity of the voting rolls we need to protect the separation [6:56] of elections from federal government ensure that our state and local governments are the [7:00] one administering their own elections that's what this is about