Attorney General Blanche defends new mail-ballot rules amid court blocks and fraud claims

Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the administration’s push for stricter mail-ballot regulations, said the Justice Department is scrutinizing election practices across several states. When asked for evidence that mail voting is more vulnerable to fraud than in-person voting with ID, Blanche replied that “there’s a lot of evidence” and that it is “common sense,” offering no concrete statistics. He indicated the government is gathering voter-registration data to investigate alleged illegal voting, though he said he was unaware of a centralized database.

The rules, adopted on Aug. 21, require states to provide the Postal Service with lists of ballot recipients and barcode-marked envelopes, allowing USPS to reject non-compliant ballots. A federal judge in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction, and the Supreme Court declined to lift it, leaving the restrictions blocked for the upcoming midterms. Research from Stanford and a 2025 analysis found mail-ballot fraud rates well below one in a million ballots.