By Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II
The U.S. Postal Service is supposed to deliver your mail, not decide whether your vote gets counted.
But under a new proposed rule, the Postal Service could refuse to deliver mail ballots unless states turn over detailed information about voters to the federal government. We all know what this is.
Donald Trump is trying to blackmail states into handing over sensitive voting information, and threatening to upend our entire election system if they refuse. It is not election security. It is an illegal power grab. They want your sensitive data like names, addresses, and tracking information tied to ballot envelopes, all so they can come up with new ways to interfere in our elections and make it harder for you to vote.
And for Black voters in Michigan, especially in Detroit, it should sound painfully familiar.
Every generation has confronted people who wanted to make voting harder for us. Our parents and grandparents faced poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and violence. Today, the tools have changed, but the goal has not. The strategy is still to limit access to the ballot, sow doubt about the votes of Black communities, and then use that doubt as an excuse to take power away from the people.
We saw it in 2020, when Trump and his allies tried to throw out votes from Wayne County after Detroit voters helped defeat him. We saw it when Black Detroiters were targeted with racist robocalls trying to scare them away from voting by mail. We saw it when lies about fraud were aimed again and again at majority-Black cities like Detroit, Flint, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Milwaukee.
This proposed Postal Service rule is part of the same playbook. First, they told people mail voting cannot be trusted. Now, they demand access to voter information. Then, they will try to create new rules that can delay ballots, confuse voters, and give the federal government power it was never meant to have.
That matters in Michigan because voting by mail is not some side issue. It is a right that Michiganders fought for and won. It helps seniors vote safely from home. It helps working parents who cannot stand in line for hours. It helps people with disabilities, caregivers, students, veterans, and shift workers.
Voting by mail is about access. It is about dignity. It is about making sure no politician can make our lives so complicated that our voices disappear.
I’m running to be Michigan’s top elections official, and my promise to you is this: I will Stand TALL against these attacks and I will refuse to bow down to this blackmail. I will protect Michigan voters from illegal federal interference. And I will work with state and local election officials to make sure every eligible voter can receive a ballot, cast that ballot, and have that ballot counted.
And I will continue to tell the truth plainly: the people pushing these schemes are not afraid of voter fraud. They are afraid of voters. They are afraid of Black voters. They are afraid of Detroit voters. They are afraid of what happens when every community has the power to shape our future.
As Secretary of State, I will not let them turn the Postal Service into a political weapon. I will not let Washington politicians bully Michigan into giving up control of our elections. And I will not let anyone use confusion, fear, or intimidation to silence our communities.
Your ballot belongs to you. Your vote belongs to you. And I will Stand TALL to keep it that way.
