Postal Service to allow voter materials

Registration and vote-by-mail applications now will be available in post office lobbies

There’s been a breakthrough in the weeks-long standoff over the availability of voter registration materials in Houston post offices with 45 days to go before the election.

Word came in a letter Friday to two Houston Democrats from a

U.S. Postal Service government relations official in Washington, clarifying that postmasters are now explicitly authorized to allow voter registration and vote-by-mail applications to be on hand in post office lobbies as long as there is room to stash them.

The letter to Reps. Al Green and Sylvia Garcia came in response to an inquiry last week highlighting reports by the League of Women Voters that volunteers had been told to come collect multilingual voter registration materials provided to more than a dozen post offices.

Volunteers from the League, a century-old nonpartisan group dedicated to voter enfranchisement, later documented 51 post offices in the Houston region that rejected voter registration materials, although some employees said they would keep the cards behind the counter in case anyone asked for them.

Amid a congressional inquiry into an alleged slowdown of mail by President Donald Trump’s handpicked postmaster general, Green and Garcia were especially concerned the chilling effect of the cards being rejected before the Oct. 5 deadline in primarily Democratic districts.

A USPS spokeswoman, Kanickewa “Nikki” Johnson, previously cited a provision of the Code of Federal Regulations that bars the “depositing or posting of handbills, flyers, pamphlets, signs, posters, placards, or other literature” at the post office as the rationale for rejecting voter forms.

The letter from Cory D. Brown, of the USPS government relations division in Washington, D.C., acknowledged the provision many post office officials have pointed to since the controversy arose prohibiting the placement of “pamphlets or other literature” inside post offices. However, Brown said the lawmakers concerns had

prompted new guidance to offices clarifying that voter materials are in a different category.

Now, he noted, “postmasters or installation heads are authorized to allow the placement of voter registration forms and absentee ballot request forms in the Post Office Box lobbies of retail facilities, provided there is adequate space available for such materials.” Johnson replied to a request for comment by sending Brown’s statement.

Volunteers had begun delivering demographically tailored kits to neighborhood post offices with the materials in various languages, since the pandemic prevented the organization from signing up voters at naturalization ceremonies.

Annie Benifield, the League of Women Voters staffer behind the adopt-apost-office initiative, said she was elated by the policy shift that she called “a triumph for democracy.”

“Fulfillment of the League’s mission to empower voters and defend democracy through the voter registration process and nonpartisan fact-based information in the Voters Guide provide a lasting legacy for society,” she said.

Garcia, who represents areas where a half dozen post offices rejected the cards, expressed gratitude to the League “for bringing this situation to our attention and their commitment to protecting everyone’s right to vote.”

Her colleague Green also lauded the League for bringing the issue to light. He said he thought the decision to reject the boxes of voting forms did not originate with the local postmaster, but rather from someone at a higher pay grade.

“It always is refreshing when things are corrected,” he said, adding, “We still have more work to do to assure people that they will be able to register and vote in this election.”