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Seattle student start school on time despite union tensions, Salem Chamber of Commerce pushes for $300M infrastructure bond, Portland Public School Board backs closing up to 20 schools, Veris Industries to close Portland location, lumber prices take a dive, Trump says Americans have ‘too many non-working holidays.’

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Why the rushed Postal Service plan for mail-in voting has states in a panic (DM)

“President Donald Trump’s executive order placing new restrictions on mail-in voting would assign state officials a Herculean task to reach compliance before the crucial midterm elections.

The order directed the U.S. Postal Service to strictly regulate the envelope design of mail-in ballots and to collect voter data from each state through an online portal, among other things. 

The Postal Service has argued in court that its rule is not an election regulation, but is within the agency’s purview as a standard for a specific type of mail.

But some state officials tasked with fitting their systems to the new regulations say it presents massive — if not impossible — challenges to reach compliance for the November midterms, when voters will decide whether to continue Republican control of the U.S. House and Senate. 

Ballot designs and printing are typically done months in advance of ballots being sent to voters, which begins this week. North Carolina is set to mail out ballots for the Nov. 3 general election on Friday. 

“In some States, it would be impossible at this point to comply with the last-minute rollout of USPS’ novel ballot-verification program,” more than 20 Democratic-led states suing to block the order said in a Wednesday court filing. “In other States, there will be chaos.”

The states presented a list of tasks state and local elections administrators would have to complete. 

That list includes: redesigning ballot envelopes and obtaining USPS approval “on an unprecedented timetable,” purchasing new envelopes, developing technological systems to meet barcode standards in the rule, uploading voter-specific information to the USPS portal that they have not yet received access to and training state and local officials and voters on the new standards.

“Each step of this process is fraught with an extreme risk of error,” they said.

Because of the unworkable timeline and a general principle not to change voting policy too close to an election, officials believe courts will ultimately block the rule from going into effect for this year.

“There’s a pretty universal feeling that the courts will stop it from happening,” Katy Owens Hubler, the director of elections at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said in an interview.

“In general, you don’t want to be changing things right before the election. So in a lot of ways, it is already too late. Part of the rule relates to the absentee ballot envelopes themselves. And … almost universally, those have already been designed and printed.”

A Massachusetts federal judge has paused the rule from taking effect through Sept. 11 while multiple legal fights play out.

Tammy Patrick, the chief programs officer at the National Association of Election Officials, a nonpartisan industry group for state and local elections officials, said in a court declaration filed Aug. 28 the timeline was unworkable for the midterms.

“None of the Rule’s requirements can feasibly be implemented before the November 3, 2026, General Election,” she wrote. “Administration of the 2026 election is already well underway, with timelines, budgets, and staffing already set, many of which are unmovable or unchangeable.” 

The rules requirements “will place new and heavy burdens” on election offices whose budgets are “already constrained,” she added.

Election officials and USPS began preparing for the 2026 election months ago, she said. And states already set funding levels.

“The infeasibility of the Rule for election officials is obvious when you consider the calendar and preparation for the 2026 general election next to the Rule’s requirements and implementation,” she wrote.

The rule would force states to push through in a matter of weeks what should take a year, Matthew Weil, the vice president for democracy and bipartisanship at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank, said.

“A year of lead time is the best practice before any new policy,” he said.

Some of the requirements themselves are not objectionable, according to experts. 

The standards for envelope design, for example, largely codify best practices the Postal Service has recommended for years.

But the rule also requires that USPS approve each design, possibly through an online portal that has yet to be introduced and has reportedly seen major problems in development.”

Hacker Allegedly Stole 153 Million Driver's Licenses, Is Now Selling Them (PCM)

“Even Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is in the database for Nexus, a mysterious site trafficking in license data. How did it happen?

In a disturbing find, a hacker has been spotted trying to sell access to over 153 million driver’s licenses from the US and Canada, including the IDs for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and an FBI assistant director. 

The hacker created a site called Nexus to offer the IDs, according to cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs, who learned about the sales after the hacker offered Krebs' Virginia driver’s license as a free sample. The hacker also offered Hegseth's driver's license for $100.

“A quick look around Nexus finds they are likely not exaggerating about that 153 million number: Running a blank search in Nexus (with no search parameters entered) returns approximately 11.5 million pages of results, with roughly 15 results displayed per page,” Krebs wrote. 

The big question is how the IDs were stolen. Krebs suspects the hacker breached New Orleans-based identity provider IDScan.net, which counts FedEx, rental car company Hertz, video game retailer GameStop, and casino operator Caesars Entertainment among its clients. A cybersecurity researcher named Zach Edwards also found his driver’s license on Nexus and noted that his ID was recently scanned while visiting a marijuana dispensary in Las Vegas operated by Planet 13, which has a partnership with IDScan. 

If real, then the illegal sales could be one of the worst breaches in recent history, exposing millions of Americans to identity theft-related schemes. IDScan and the FBI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But Krebs says both are already investigating. He adds that the mysterious Nexus website has since vanished from the dark web following his report, although it could always reappear through a new domain.”

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