Senate Democrats, in a letter, urged the United States Postal Service to explain how it plans to handle the influx of ballots expected to come as millions of people vote by mail this fall.
The letter, which was delivered exclusively to Vox, asks the USPS to inform Congress of its plans to process an astonishing number of ballots and avoid deprivation of voter rights.
“While voting-by-mail problems may be the result of a variety of factors, staff shortages and delays in the Postal Service’s processing facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic can lead to delays that harm the use of electoral mail, “writes Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, along with several other Democrats. “If mail ballots are late and are not counted, some voters may be deprived of their rights.”
This letter follows a report from the Washington Post, which uncovered a USPS internal memo that outlined plans that could slow delivery services as a way to address higher costs. “If the plants are late, they will save the mail for the next day,” reads a line from the memo.
Such delays could have a significant impact on elections, both when it comes to making sure that mail-in ballot forms reach voters on time, and ensuring that those same ballots reach the election authorities before the specified deadlines. let them count. In the Florida primaries, for example, no more than 18,000 ballots were counted because they arrived after the state deadline, a problem that many voters may encounter in November if the postal system is overwhelmed. A study by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also found that hundreds of absentee ballots never reached voters during the Wisconsin primary election, in part because of mail delivery problems.
This specific issue takes on a new urgency this year as a historic number of voters are expected to use mail ballots to participate in the electoral process given the public health risks posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. During the Pennsylvania primaries, for example, 1.5 million voters used mail ballots, compared to 80,000 in 2018, Democrats say. And if the numbers for the general elections hold or exceed those of 2016, it is estimated that at least 130 million people vote overall, ensuring a huge wave of mail-in voting as health concerns about the venues persist. physical voting.
Democrats want more details on staff and time
Among the key questions Democrats have for the USPS: Would they like more information on the number of staff that the USPS is deploying to coordinate the logistics of voting by mail, and are interested in how the USPS could keep up with the process of processing ballots. if one of your locations suffers an outbreak of coronavirus.
One of the unknowns regarding mail ballots is how long it will take for states to receive and count the votes, a delay that could mean the end result will not be clear for a week or even longer. Ensuring that ballots are delivered expeditiously is a core competence of the USPS, particularly since there are strict deadlines for when votes can be received by mail to be counted.
Voting rights experts, including at the Brennan Center, have argued that some of these deadlines should be relaxed in November to allow as many people to participate in the process as possible and to offset potential USPS problems. “Deadlines for receipt of mail ballots should be extended to account for delays in US mail, ballot retrieval or other administrative processing delays caused by Covid-19,” write Wendy Weiser and Max. Feldman of the Brennan Center.
As this week’s letter indicates, lawmakers still have doubts about whether the USPS is equipped to take on the central role it will play this fall.
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