Merkley, Wyden, Colleagues Fight Back Against Trump’s Executive Order Restricting Vote by Mail, Press USPS on Unconstitutional Executive Order

Washington, D.C. - Oregon's U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden joined over 30 of their Senate Democratic colleagues in introducing the Absentee and Mail Voter Protection Act (Absentee MVP Act). The bill would defend the right to vote by mail, uphold the integrity of our elections, and block President Trump's illegal, unconstitutional executive order attacking mail and absentee ballots.

"Oregonians know that vote by mail has been a cornerstone in holding secure, accessible, high-integrity elections for decades," said Merkley. "Trump's anti-voter executive order is an outrageous and unconstitutional power grab that threatens to silence voters by letting the president interfere with lawful ballots. That's not how democracy works. The ballot box is the beating heart of democracy, and I'm fighting to protect the right of every eligible voter to make their voice heard."

"Oregon's vote-by-mail system has long proven itself the safest and easiest way to vote," said Wyden. "Donald Trump is scared of that track record in our state and elsewhere because he knows a free and fair election this November has his party heading for major losses. Trump's plot to change the rules with just months to go until the midterms is an illegal assault on election integrity, and this bill would stop his coward's scheme in its tracks."

The Absentee MVP Act would nullify Trump's unlawful March 31, 2026 executive order that aims to illegally re-write federal election rules or any similar order and prohibit the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and any other agency from spending funds to implement actions in the President's unconstitutional executive order. At its core, Trump's executive order would give the USPS sweeping new authority to decide which voters may cast ballots by mail by ordering the USPS to reject and refuse delivery of lawful ballots unless states comply with newly established federal eligibility lists. Those who do not comply with these restrictions would face serious consequences: election officials, mail carriers, and others who send or deliver ballots to voters the administration considers ineligible could face criminal charges and states and local governments forfeit federal funding. To lay the groundwork for this override of existing state and federal voting laws, the order also tasks DHS with building state-by-state rosters of voting-age American citizens - drawn from federal data sources widely considered to be incomplete and unreliable.

In addition to nullifying the executive order, the Absentee MVP Act bars any similar executive orders and provides additional limits on the Trump Administration's attempts to implement the actions in the executive order, including by:

• Blocking the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DHS from sharing state voter lists
• Defunding the DOJ's efforts to compel production of state voter lists
• Enforcing the Privacy Act by barring federal agencies from improperly sharing voter data, both within the government and with outside groups
• Defunding any future Commerce Department efforts to enact partisan regulation of mail in ballots

The Absentee MVP Act was led by U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), and Dick Durbin (D-IL). This week, Merkley and Wyden also joined a letter led by Padilla, Peters, and Durbin to the USPS Board of Governors and Postmaster General David Steiner demanding that USPS follow the law and not implement President Trump's unlawful executive order.

Full text of the Absentee MVP Act is available by clicking here.

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