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Affected by the new coronavirus epidemic, many Americans voted by mail, but 300,000 ballots could not be delivered before voting started, affecting the voting deadline and delaying up to 15 states. The Washington DC judge asked the United States Postal Service to find these ballots and resubmit them, but the failure of the General Post Office to implement the order may affect the election results. Now the court will hold a hearing to hear the interpretation of the post office.
The Associated Press reported that United States District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in Washington, DC, had ordered that these ballots be found and mailed by 3 p.m. Tuesday. The areas affected by the court order include central Pennsylvania, southern Florida, South Carolina, Colorado, Wisconsin, parts of Illinois, Arizona, Alabama and Wyoming. However, the director of the United States Postal Service (USPS), Louis DeJoy, finally declared that there is no way to implement this decision. For one thing, there is not enough manpower and it can disrupt the operation of Election Day.
Obviously, this is a situation where the United States Postal Service did not comply with the judge’s order. The attorney representing the postal service said: “We are working hard to implement the court order as soon as possible, but at the same time we recognize that there are limitations on manpower and business, and it can destroy Election Day. Activity principal.”
After the court received the response from the post office, it planned to hold a hearing on Wednesday to “discuss the post office’s failure to comply with the court orders.” Some commenters asserted that the hearing can (or should) expose the postmaster’s allegations of “contempt of court.” Some people also said that the US Postal Service was sued for interfering in the elections.
According to Law and Crime, the court can respond in three ways: First, the judge accepts the interpretation of the US Postal Service and agrees that it is impossible to strictly comply with your order, and removes or modifies it in consecuense. The above command.
Second, the judge punishes the United States Postal Service with fines. Of course, Congress can allocate a budget to help the Postal Service pay the fines. In the third type, the court can initiate criminal investigations against the postmaster, but there is no such case in history.
Why is it so important? Because in undecided states, late voting is likely to change the outcome of the presidential election; For example, in the 2016 presidential election, among invalid ballots in Pennsylvania, one out of every two ballots was sent late due to missed deadlines. Pu defeated Hillary Clinton by more than 40,000 votes in the state.
(Zhongshi News Network)
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