FILE - A worker pushes a cart of received mail ballots at the L.A. County Ballot Processing Center Nov. 4, 2025, in City of Industry, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)
FILE - The U.S. Postal Service's next-generation delivery vehicle, left, is displayed as one new battery electric delivery trucks leaves the Kokomo Sorting and Delivery Center in Kokomo, Ind., Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)
FILE - A worker pushes a cart of received mail ballots at the L.A. County Ballot Processing Center Nov. 4, 2025, in City of Industry, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)
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FILE - The U.S. Postal Service's next-generation delivery vehicle, left, is displayed as one new battery electric delivery trucks leaves the Kokomo Sorting and Delivery Center in Kokomo, Ind., Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)
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 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 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 .
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.â€
Trump's latest election executive order is already facing lawsuits by various groups, including who argue that the Constitution empowers states and Congress, not the president, to set election rules.
Trump, who as recently as last month , has publicly . 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.â€
Voting by noncitizens 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.â€
