By Erin Cox,
Elise Viebeck,
Jacob Bogage and
Christopher Ingraham
August 14, 2020 at 2:22 p.m. EDT
Anticipating an avalanche of absentee ballots, the U.S. Postal Service recently sent detailed letters to 46 states and D.C. warning that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted — adding another layer of uncertainty ahead of the high-stakes presidential contest.
The letters sketch a grim possibility for the tens of millions of Americans eligible for a mail-in ballot this fall: Even if people follow all of their state’s election rules, the pace of Postal Service delivery may disqualify their votes.
The Postal Service’s warnings of potential disenfranchisement came as the agency undergoes a sweeping organizational and policy overhaul amid dire financial conditions. Cost-cutting moves have already delayed mail delivery by as much as a week in some places, and a new decision to decommission 10 percent of the Postal Service’s sorting machines sparked widespread concern the slowdowns will only worsen. Rank-and-file postal workers say the move is ill-timed and could sharply diminish the speedy processing of flat mail, including letters and ballots.
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“The Postal Service is asking election officials and voters to realistically consider how the mail works,” Martha Johnson, a spokeswoman for the USPS, said in a statement.
In response to the Postal Service’s warnings, a few states have quickly moved deadlines — forcing voters to request or cast ballots earlier, or deciding to delay tabulating results while waiting for more ballots to arrive.
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Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that mail ballots lead to widespread voter fraud and in the process politicized the USPS. This week, he said he opposes emergency funding for the agency — which has repeatedly requested more resources — because of Democratic efforts to expand mail voting.
The Postal Service’s structural upheaval alone has led experts and lawmakers from both parties to worry about timely delivery of prescription medications and Social Security checks, as well as ballots.
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And the USPS is currently decommissioning 10 percent of its costly and bulky mail-sorting machines, which workers say could hinder processing of election mail, according to a grievance filed by the American Postal Workers Union and obtained by The Washington Post. Those 671 machines, scattered across the country but concentrated in high-population areas, have the capacity to sort 21.4 million pieces of paper mail per hour.
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Even without the emergency funding Trump vowed to block, postal workers can handle the country’s mail-in ballots with proper planning, the head of their union said.
“Piece of cake for postal workers,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union.
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According to the letters, the risk of disenfranchisement is greatest for
voters who wait until close to Election Day to request or cast a
ballot. The letters advised 31 states that regardless of their
deadlines, voters should mail ballots no later than Oct. 27 — a week
before Election Day — if they want to guarantee they are counted.
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Elections
officials across the country are also installing drop boxes for
completed ballots and encouraging voters to use them in lieu of the
Postal Service.
The USPS did not offer serious warnings to the five states that have long conducted universal vote-by-mail elections — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington.
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Reading from the letter, Ashcroft disputed a recommendation that Missouri voters who mail their completed ballots “no later than Tuesday, October 27,” could be assured of arrival by Election Day. He recounted the experience of a voter in St. Louis during the state’s June municipal contests — she dropped her ballot in the mail six days before the election, he said, but it took 14 days to arrive at an address in the same city and was not counted as a result.
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