NICOLE KELLY And STEVE ROBERTS: How States Can Restore Confidence In Elections

Democracy is a fragile thing. Its fundamental premise – government selected by the governed – requires a reliable, trustworthy system of choosing its leaders. As America celebrates the anniversary of its 250th year, this foundational promise faces a renewed threat from flawed election systems that erode public trust.

The latest attacks on Election Day security include the U.S. Postal Service’s revelation that postmark dates aren’t a guarantee of when something was mailed. Yet a promising countermove is on the horizon: the Supreme Court’s recent oral arguments in Watson v. RNC. If the Court rules as widely expected, the decision will eliminate post-election day ballot receipt periods, encourage a return to timely Election Day results, and help shift the country away from the widespread reliance on mail-in ballots.

However, even if the Supreme Court makes a move towards restoring Election Day to its former glory, it’s time for states to seize the moment and enact further sweeping reforms to safeguard the integrity of our votes.

The USPS’s new diktat, effective Dec. 24, 2025, is a glaring symptom of the broader chaos inherent in widespread use of mail-in voting, a COVID-era change across states that has far outlasted its usefulness. USPS has categorically announced that mail, including ballots, may not receive a postmark on the same day it’s dropped off. Problematically, states that allow mail-in ballots to arrive after Election Day generally rely on postmark dates to determine whether a ballot can be counted.

But without reliable postmarking practices, this will cause major issues in those states. For states that are ahead of the trend and do not accept ballots after Election Day (i.e. Florida, Ohio, Texas, others), the postmarking change is seemingly irrelevant. Either it has arrived on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, or it hasn’t. Yet, for states with weak election administration laws that allow the ballots received after Election Day to be counted – provided that the ballot was postmarked by the close of polls on Election Day (i.e. Nevada) –– this direct failure to follow long-held practice regarding same-day postmarks adds another level of issues.

Specifically, the USPS notes that “while the presence of a postmark on a mailpiece confirms that the Postal Service was in possession of the mailpiece on the date of the postmark’s inscription, the postmark date does not inherently or necessarily align with the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of the mailpiece.” Such systemic unreliability, –introduced by an agency of the federal government, invites doubt, delays, and disputes, fueling the very cynicism that undermines faith in our electoral process.