Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger claimed the Trump administration is trying to strip overseas service members of their ability to vote by mail. The Postal Service’s own final rule says that’s not true.
The rule at the center of the dispute explicitly exempts ballots covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA, from the new federal ballot-mail requirements. Military personnel, their families and other overseas voters are carved out by name.
Spanberger made her claim on X on Aug. 29: “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.”
She repeated the argument days later in a CNN interview after anchor Wolf Blitzer raised the possibility that Virginia’s overseas military personnel could be affected by the new rule.
“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.
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.” Spanberger agreed, and pointed to members of the military and diplomatic services as being affected along with other Virginians who prefer voting by mail.
CNN later corrected the record on air. “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,” Blitzer said Monday. “Those groups are covered under UOCAVA, just to be specific on that point.”
A community note attached to Spanberger’s own post on X made the same point: “Military and overseas voters’ UOCAVA ballots are explicitly exempt from the USPS rules implementing the March 2026 executive order; service members abroad can still register/request absentee ballots via the Federal Post Card Application.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, weighed in directly, saying he had discussed overseas military voting with President Trump “many times” and that Trump had consistently said he did not want to interfere with service members’ ability to vote by mail. “This is completely false,” Lee wrote.
Spanberger did not respond to a request for comment.
The Legal Fight Continues
The underlying battle over Trump’s mail-voting policy is far from settled. The Supreme Court handed the administration a procedural win in August, staying an earlier injunction after finding the states’ challenge premature — a ruling that did not decide the legality of the policy itself.
An Obama-appointed federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday staying key provisions of the USPS rule, adding another twist to a legal fight that continues to play out ahead of the midterms.
