The battle between the administration and state/local voting officials is focused now on what might called the Postal Service Plan. The administration’s likely deep strategy is much more intrusive.

Keep track of three initiatives: (1) the one before us now, which the administration still is trying to put into place for this November, (2) a much more expanded voluntary system, envisioned in 2025 and which Alabama has used, and (3) what is likely the real plan, which is a mandatory comprehensive system built on the March 2025 vision.

As of today — September 7, 2026 — the Trump administration’s plan to interfere with state and local voting is blocked.  Here is a sketch of what it appears to want to happen; also, a sketch of a more ambitious program to interfere at the state level.

The administration issued on March 31, 2026 executive order on how it (DHS and the Postal Service) will not send mailed voting ballots.  About 1/3 of all voting is down by mailed ballot — 40 % of voting by seniors.

The administration has not formally filed a plan on how this process is supposed to work. Here is a copy of a partial summary concept with no mention of how states and the administration will resolve problems in their proprietary databases and between their respective databases. Here is a press report.

On Sept 1 Senator Blumenthal released a copy of a submission by a whistleblower from within the Postal Service. It includes a summary of how the Postal Service inspection of mailed ballot mailing lists is to take place. It appears to  compare the list to ballots to be delivered by mail with lists by the state of persons expected to receive a mailed ballot.

This is a crude program behind which I expect is a more robust program of matching state voter lists with federal databases. It is expressly intended to find non-citizens. I sketch this more ambitious program below, as that in all likelihood is where the administration is headed, if not in 2026, then in 2028.

The more ambitious program is, in fact, in place, in some states which have signed Memorandums of Understanding with the administration.

This much more aggressive plan, hatched in a March 25, 2025 executive order, turns the SAVE program (see below) into an effect a national database of all persons, citizens and non-citizens distinquishe from each other. This plan was ruled illegal by a district court decision, League of Women Voters v DHS, in June 2026 on grounds including impermissable use of social security data.

Alabama  Secretary of State Wes Allen signed an MOU in June 2025. It had previously announced in August 2024 a figure of 3,251 — persons on voter rolls who had come up with the a DHS  identification as being non-citizens. Before the MOU was signed, challenges in court had reduced that number by about 2,000.  In January 2026, after using SAVE (again, see below), a final number of 186 non-citizens were found, 25 of whom had voted at some time. This history shows that by picking carefully through the initial lists, a final figure can be found and it will be likely in three digits, for a state with several million voters.  So, the use of federal data bases can be useful (as they are in e-Verify, for employment), but must be used carefully, not on the eve of an election, and without banner headlines.

The MOU signed by Alabama appears to relate to a Memorandum of Agreement betweem DHS and USCIS regarding DHA access to USCIS data, to which Alabama will have access. A notable element in this MOA is that the information can be used by states to review eligability for “benefits,” which include voting — but excludes employment.  State use of the data is entirely at the discretion of the state — there appears to be no federal interference.

However the Postal Service plan IS federal interference. It is prudent to consider what the administration might have in mind were it to expand its interference in state management of voting. This is where we go now ……..

Here is how a more ambitious program would likely work:

The administration would use the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, known as SAVE, as envisioned by the March 2025 executive order.  This system inspects DHS records and social security records for evidence of non-citizen status. The social security system supplies citizenship, foreign-birth, death, and other information.  DHS’s databases include applications by non-citizens for change in status, plus other visa and immigration-related files.

Errors would include out of date records and errors in identification.  SAVE is not allowed to reveal social security numbers, which limits the possibility of auditing a finding of non-citizens on voting rolls.

DHS would need a plan o resolve conflicts in and among its databases.

DHS wouold thereby create a master list of non-citizen — which the MOA provides for — and compare this list with state voting lists.

DHS has issued no plans to reconcile its list with state voting lists. Its position may be that it is up to the states to do the homework – i.e. those deemed by DHS as being non-citizens– and the DHS might make the final decision without appeal. This is similar to the Postal Service plan.

States would be responsible for reporting to DHS apparent mismatches between its record and DHS’s. Errors can range from duplicate names errors on voting lists.For a state to resolve these matches, it would presumably demand this kind of documentation:

A valid U.S. passport, certified U.S. birth certificate, a Certificate of Naturalization, or a Consular Report of Birth for someone born abroad who acquired citizenship through an American parent.

The might be rules / procedures / deadlines that DHS must comply with to revise its entries based on submission by the state. in the Postal Service program, states can only “suggest” changes. Here we go back to the Postal Service plan and its defects.  In this plan DHS is under no legal obligation to correct its list within a specific time frame — and thereby allow ballots to be mailed. There are no rules for what documents DHS must recognize as conclusive proof, the evidentiary standard DHS must apply, a deadline for deciding a state’s submission, a duty to accept a state election official’s determination, or a procedure for appealing DHS’s rejection of a state-submitted correction.