Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger accused the Trump administration of trying to strip Americans stationed or living abroad of their ability to vote by mail, even though the U.S. Postal Service’s final rule specifically carves out an exemption for military and overseas ballots.
At issue is a final USPS rule creating new requirements for certain federal election mail. The rule states that ballots protected under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, known as UOCAVA, are not subject to those changes. Even so, an Obama-appointed federal judge on Thursday temporarily paused key parts of the policy.
“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 in an Aug. 29 post on X.
The final rule directly notes that UOCAVA voters are excluded, saying the distinction recognizes the unique challenges faced by service members, their families and other eligible American voters overseas.
Spanberger echoed the concern during an appearance on CNN, after anchor Wolf Blitzer suggested that Virginia-based military personnel serving overseas might be impacted by the postal changes.
CNN later revisited the issue on air and clarified for viewers that UOCAVA ballots are exempt from the new USPS ballot-mail 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.
Blitzer also noted that Virginia has “a lot of military personnel who totally rely on mail-in ballots if they want to be able to express their opinion.”
Spanberger agreed, pointing to members of the military and diplomatic services, saying the administration’s actions were impacting them along with other Virginians who find vote-by-mail “a better option.”
Spanberger did not respond to a request for comment, but when reached, a representative for CNN said Blitzer issued an on-air correction 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 in the correction.
“A comment that may’ve suggested that US 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 added as an appendix to Spanberger’s tweet of her exchange with Blitzer also surfaced the correction.
“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,” it read.
Several users also pushed back and cited federal statute as well as the USPS’ own rule.
Others said the governor was allegedly “lying” and suggested she should know of UOCAVA as a former CIA officer.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, picked up on her original tweet, responding that he had personally discussed overseas military voting with Trump “many times” and said Trump had consistently made clear he did not want to interfere with Americans serving abroad voting by mail.
“This is completely false,” Lee tweeted.
The Supreme Court in August handed Trump a largely favorable procedural ruling, staying an earlier injunction after finding that the states’ challenge was premature at that stage.
The ruling did not decide the legality of the administration’s mail-voting policies on the merits. America First Legal President Gene Hamilton previously told Fox News Digital that the court prevented the administration from being effectively “enjoined from thinking” before agencies had settled on concrete policies.
The broader fight over Trump’s mail-voting push remains unresolved.
The Supreme Court stayed a judge’s earlier injunction after concluding the administration was likely to prevail on its argument that the challenge was premature, but her latest temporary restraining order sets up yet another speed bump.
