How Threats to Voting by Mail Could Affect Cascadia

Voting by mail has a long and proven track record. It increases turnout, gives voters more time to consider issues and candidates, and saves election administrators money. It's just as free from fraud as other methods of voting—which is to say, there's virtually none. Neither Democrats nor Republicans get a particular boost from expanding access to mail ballots.

Unsurprisingly, it's also popular. Across the five states that make up most of Cascadia (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington), four in five voters receive their ballots in their mailboxes. Cascadia has always been a leader in this form of franchise: Oregon was the first state to hold an all-mail election in 1995 and made it permanent in 2000; Washington followed suit in 2011 after long offering an absentee option. Many states across the US expanded the option during the COVID-19 pandemic, and while some have reverted to offering it only to overseas and military voters, close to one-third of American voters still take advantage of the benefits of voting at home.

But this easy method of voting is now under threat. From postal service policy updates to a case before the US Supreme Court, voters long used to dropping their ballots in the mail may no longer have them counted in time. Fortunately, the biggest dangers, such as the US House's proposed ban on mail-in ballots, don't seem likely to go into effect any time soon.

In this article, I lay out the existing and potential federal threats to Cascadia's favorite voting method. I then examine available data and policy on how they might affect our region's elections.

Of the five main Cascadian states, Idaho, will have the fewest hurdles to overcome, as its laws already match some of the potential additional restrictions and fewer Idaho voters use the mail-in option. Yet plenty of Gem State voters—rural and urban—still benefit from access to absentee ballots.

Montana has similar laws to Idaho, but Montana voters return their ballots by mail at the highest rate of any state in the region (most Oregon and Washington voters return ballots through drop boxes), so USPS delays might affect more of them.

Like voters across the region, Oregon voters would do well to get ballots in early or use the state's many ballot drop boxes. Oregon's May primary election was a good messaging test for election administrators and advocates.

Voters in Washington, which currently allows ballots to arrive at elections offices later than any other state, might have to adjust their habits significantly, depending on the scope of the changes. And recent elections already show a larger proportion of ballots invalidated for tardiness compared with previous years.

Any changes might have the most impact in Alaska, not for a large number of voters, but for those in remote areas with few fallback options.

The challenges that might affect mail-in ballots, described below from most to least likely, vary in the scale of their consequences. The most pervasive threat to mail voting isn't an outright attack; it's a secondary effect of USPS decisions that are already impacting voters. The US Supreme Court has not yet ruled in the relevant case, but its decision would affect as many as one in six voters in some states and is worth preparing for. More overtly anti-mail voting efforts in the form of congressional legislation and a presidential executive order have greater potential impact but murky prospects for success.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) both delivers unmarked ballots to voters' homes and returns completed ballots from mailboxes to election centers. Its long-standing organizational challenges are already besetting voters.

Facing a financial crisis, USPS started consolidating mail processing centers more than two years ago and reducing delivery and pickup times in early 2025. Then in December 2025, USPS declared that postmarks show the date mail goes through an automated processing f...