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State election officials from across the country on Wednesday sharply criticized Postmaster General Louis DeJoy over what they perceive is a lack of readiness on the part of the United States Postal Service (USPS) to help administrate the upcoming election.
“Over the course of the last year, election officials across the country have raised serious questions about processing facility operations, lost or delayed election mail, and front-line training deficiencies impacting USPS’s ability to deliver election mail in a timely and accurate manner,” said the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors in a joint letter.
However, the groups do not believe that their concerns have been adequately addressed. In fact, they state that they have not seen any improvement to remediate them.
Now, with less than two months to go before the election and early voting getting underway, they see an urgent need for action.
“We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service,” the two groups state. “Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process.”
DeJoy took office under Donald Trump, who repeatedly tried to undermine voting-by-mail ahead of the 2020 election. Since then, the postmaster general has come under frequent criticism for trying to undermine the USPS and its role in elections.
The election officials outline three main areas of concern.
First, they lament that Postal Service staff across all levels is “uninformed about USPS policies around election mail,” which has “led to inconsistent guidance given to election officials, as well as ballots being deliberately held to remediate erroneous billing issues, significantly delayed, or otherwise improperly processed.”
While the groups acknowledge that USPS has a staff of 600,000, they also note that the errors are much too widespread and show that there is a “pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees.”
A second problem is the timely delivery of completed ballots.
“In nearly every state, local election officials are receiving timely postmarked ballots well after Election Day and well outside the three to five business days USPS claims as the First-Class delivery standard,” the letter states.
This is, of course, a serious issue when it comes to the integrity of elections. Especially in close swing states, it seems likely that the results will be contested, which could include ballots that were received too late.
Finally, the groups also note that election officials are increasingly encountering high rates of undeliverable mail “even in cases where a voter is known not to have moved.”
The same is also true for completed ballots that are being returned. In these cases, the election office address is marked as undeliverable.
“State and local election officials need a committed partner in USPS,” the groups wrote. “We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service.”
