United States Postal Service
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court of the District of Columbia ordered the US Postal Service to immediately sweep facilities for ballots in crucial swing states. The order mandates that facilities must start the process by 3pm ET "to ensure that no ballots have been held up and that any identified ballots are immediately sent out for delivery.
Sweeps must be conducted in various crucial swing states, including Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, Arizona and South Florida.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ordered the USPS on Monday to prioritise mail-in ballots, treating it as either first-class mail or priority express mail and added that the USPS "shall pre-approve all overtime that has been or will be requested" between October 26 and November 6.
Judge Stanley Bastian has temporarily blocked the US Postal Service and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy from changing USPS policies or protocols before the November election. Recent changes have slowed mail nationwide, in what Judge Bastian called "a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service".
"Although not necessarily apparent on the surface, at the heart of DeJoy's and the Postal Service's actions is voter disenfranchisement. This is evident in President Trump's highly partisan words and tweets, the actual impact of the changes on primary elections that resulted in uncounted ballots, and recent attempts and lawsuits by the Republican National Committee and President Trump's campaign to stop the States' efforts to bypass the Postal Service by utilizing ballot drop boxes, as well as the timing of the changes," so the Judge in a statement. "It is easy to conclude that the recent Postal Services' changes is an intentional effort on the part of the current Administration to disrupt and challenge the legitimacy of upcoming local, state, and federal elections, especially given that 72% of the ... high speed mail sorting machines that were decommissioned were located in counties where Hillary Clinton received the most votes in 2016."
US District Judge Stanley Bastian gave the Trump administration and the USPS 10 days to provide records and information about service changes that could undermine main-in voting in the November election.
More than 20 states filed lawsuits last week over the changes, and Bastian granted the states’ request to speed up discovery in that case. The Justice Department opposed the request, stating that much of the information the states are seeking is already in the public record.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced Thursday that he was halting many of the changes, which included reducing overtime and removing mail sorting equipment.
Postal workers in Tacoma and Wenatchee reinstalled machines for high-speed mail sorting that were dismantled after orders from the head of maintenance of USPS.
The orders have led to widespread fear that the USPS could not handle the millions of mail-in ballots expected during the November election.
According to an NPR report, 40 percent of the high-speed sorting
machines in the Seattle-Tacoma are were already dismantled and
disconnected.
Interrupting its summer recess, members of the House are set to vote on a bill, called "Delivering for America Act", that would allocate $25 billion to the United States Postal Service and block operational changes that are said to delay mail delivery. Democrats as well as some Republicans have voiced concerns that the previous changes (elimination of overtime, removing some high-volume mail sorting machines, etc.) to the USPS could jeopardize mail-in ballots during the 2020 elections. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has stated that his "number one priority" was that these changes would not affect the delivery of election mail.