Postal Service union launches ad campaign promoting mail voting as Trump
assails the method
[April 15, 2026]
By SUSAN HAIGH
A major U.S. Postal Service union is launching a national TV ad campaign
promoting voting by mail, stepping into a politically charged debate as
skepticism about mail-in ballots has been raised by President Donald
Trump and others.
The 30-second message features a variety of voters, among them a busy
farmer and a flight attendant, explaining why they cast their ballots by
mail. Sponsored by the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union, the
advertising campaign announced Tuesday will begin airing this week in
Ohio, where Union Army soldiers during the Civil War cast the first mail
ballots in 1864. It will then move to other states.
The ad ends with the message: “Vote by mail — keep it, protect it,
expand it.” It comes two weeks after Trump signed an executive order
that seeks to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and
subsequently bar postal workers from sending absentee ballots to those
who are not on each state’s approved list.
The order was met swiftly with lawsuits and opposition from postal
workers. The National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association said USPS is
“not equipped or authorized to decide who is or is not entitled to vote”
and pushing it into such a role “risks politicizing one of the nation’s
most trusted public institutions.” The union also said it threatens
confidence in the mail and in elections.
Jonathan Smith, president of American Postal Workers, said his union's
TV ad was produced before Trump's executive order was issued, not in
response to it. An executive order on elections that Trump signed last
year also targeted mail ballots by seeking to require they be returned
by Election Day, even though more than a dozen states allow a grace
period.
Smith said the union wants to encourage people to continue voting by
mail. But he expressed concern about the potential ramifications of
requiring postal workers to determine who should receive an absentee
ballot and who should not.
“It is our position that it is not the job of the postal workers to
verify voter eligibility," he said. "It is our job to move mail from one
destination to the next. He added: “We do not want to be politicized.”
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Trump's latest election executive order is already facing lawsuits
by various groups, including Democrats in Washington who argue that
the Constitution empowers states and Congress, not the president, to
set election rules.
Trump, who as recently as last month voted by mail, has publicly
bashed mail voting. Mail voting has existed for more than a century
and had steadily been increasing in popularity in both Democratic-
and Republican-led states until 2020, when Trump started to target
the method, levying baseless claims of mass fraud. It has now
becomes less popular among Republicans.
A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that
cases of mail voting fraud occurred in only a tiny fraction of total
mail ballots cast — about four cases out of every 10 million mail
ballots.
A White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, responded to the ad
campaign by saying Trump “will do everything in his power to defend
the safety and security of American elections and to ensure that
only American citizens are voting in them.”
Voting by noncitizens also is rare and, when caught, is punishable
as a potential felony and with the possibility of deportation.
The Postal Service did not return a request for comment.
The union's TV ad campaign is intended to be a direct message to
voters, not the president, Smith said.
“Our message is to America: Vote by mail is efficient, it’s safe,
and it’s successful. Period,” he said. “This is educating the
American people that you can use vote by mail and you can be
guaranteed that your voice will be heard and your vote will be
counted.”
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