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The Morning

Your Questions, Answered

You asked about mail-in ballots, oil in the Middle East, manufacturing jobs and more.

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In the Strait of Hormuz.

Credit...

Reuters

By

Sam Sifton

I am the host of The Morning.

April 13, 2026,

6:35 a.m. ET

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It’s a journalist’s job to ask questions. And it’s a great job. But it’s not as if any of us here at The Times have cornered the market on curiosity. Subscribers to The Morning have questions, too — this week about mail-in ballots, oil in the Middle East, manufacturing jobs and more. We took them to expert beat reporters for answers.

And we’ll keep doing so. Have a news question for us?

Submit it here

.

I live in a state where people can vote by mail, and I wonder how the president’s executive order — trying to limit such ballots — may affect our upcoming elections. | Laura Young, Portland, Oregon

Image

A mail-in ballot in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Credit...

Hannah Beier for The New York Times

Nick Corasaniti

, who covers elections, writes:

Well, the president has no explicit constitutional authority over elections, and aspects of the order

appear difficult to enforce

. Legal experts expect courts to block large parts of it. Two issues are likelier to affect mail voting this year:

a looming Supreme Court decision

on late-arriving ballots and budget changes at the Postal Service. Many election officials,

as well as the Postal Service

, recommend that voters send their ballots at least one week before Election Day.

The Persian Gulf countries are struggling to export their oil because Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz. Why don’t they just build an oil pipeline across Saudi Arabia? | Will Karlin, Denver, Colorado

Vivian Nereim

, the Gulf bureau chief, writes:

Saudi Arabia actually

did

build an oil pipeline to bypass the strait, decades ago, to prepare for a moment like this. It was transporting up to seven million barrels per day of oil — until it was bombed during the Iran war, reducing its capacity by around 10 percent. The vulnerability of pipelines is one reason that this one isn’t a cure-all. Another is that the six Gulf countries are economic competitors that often have tense political relationships; the Gulf countries are not always inclined to share. So a cross-border project would be a tall order.

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