Spanberger’s Claim That Trump Is Targeting Military Mail Ballots Contradicted by USPS Rule’s Own Text

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said the Trump administration is trying to strip overseas service members of their ability to vote by mail, but the U.S. Postal Service’s final rule at the center of the dispute explicitly exempts those ballots from its new requirements.

“If you are serving our country abroad, I believe that you should have the ability to cast a vote in our elections. The Trump Administration is attempting to take that ability away,” Spanberger wrote on X on Aug. 29.

The USPS rule excludes ballots covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA, from the new federal ballot-mail requirements. The rule’s text says the carve-out reflects the specific circumstances facing military personnel, their families and other Americans voting from overseas. A federal judge appointed by President Obama temporarily stayed key provisions of the broader rule on Thursday, but the UOCAVA exemption itself was not in dispute.

Spanberger repeated her claim in a CNN interview in which anchor Wolf Blitzer raised the possibility that Virginia military personnel stationed abroad could be affected by the administration’s policy. CNN later returned on air to clarify that UOCAVA ballots are exempt from the new requirements.

“The continued attacks that we’re seeing from the Trump administration [are] really just an effort to get people fearful, to get to stay home, and in many cases, to eliminate what is a valid, safe, secure way for people to be able to make their voices heard and to vote,” Spanberger said during the interview. Blitzer had noted that Virginia is home to “a lot of military personnel who totally rely on mail-in ballots if they want to be able to express their opinion,” and Spanberger agreed, citing military members and diplomatic personnel along with other Virginians who prefer voting by mail.

Spanberger did not respond to a request for comment. A CNN representative confirmed that Blitzer issued an on-air correction the following Monday.

“On Friday, I interviewed the Democratic governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger. We discussed legal challenges to the Trump administration’s directives for the Postal Service on mail-in voting,” Blitzer said. “A comment that may’ve suggested that U.S. military and overseas voters’ ballots would be impacted by these directives — I want to be clear right now, those ballots are exempt from the Postal Service’s new rules implementing the president’s March executive order. Those groups are covered under [UOCAVA], just to be specific on that point.”

An X community note attached to Spanberger’s original post also flagged the discrepancy, stating that “military and overseas voters’ UOCAVA ballots are explicitly exempt from the USPS rules implementing the March 2026 executive order,” and that service members abroad can still register or request absentee ballots through the Federal Post Card Application. Other users on the platform cited federal statute and the USPS’s own rule in pushing back on Spanberger’s post, with some noting her background as a former CIA officer.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also responded to Spanberger’s original tweet, writing that he had personally discussed overseas military voting with President Trump “many times” and that Trump had consistently said he did not want to interfere with the ability of Americans serving abroad to vote by mail. “This is completely false,” Lee wrote.

The Broader Legal Fight

The dispute over Spanberger’s remarks comes amid an unresolved legal battle over the Trump administration’s mail-voting policies. The Supreme Court handed the administration a largely favorable procedural ruling in August, staying an earlier injunction after finding the states’ challenge was premature. That ruling did not address the legality of the administration’s mail-voting policies on the merits.

America First Legal President Gene Hamilton has said the high court’s action prevented the administration from being effectively “enjoined from thinking” before federal agencies had finalized concrete policies. Thursday’s temporary restraining order from the federal judge represents a new setback for the administration as the legal fight continues.