USPS Disregards Court-Ordered Deadline To ‘Sweep’ For More Than 300,000 Missing Ballots

The U.S. Postal Service ignored a federal judge’s order late Tuesday afternoon to sweep mail processing facilities serving 15 states, saying instead it would stick to its own inspection schedule.

According to The Inquirer, the judge’s order came after the agency revealed that more than 300,000 ballots nationwide could not be traced in the U.S. mail system.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia had given the USPS until 3:30 p.m. to conduct the “all clear” checks to ensure there would be enough time to get any newly found ballots to election officials before polls closed yesterday.

Sullivan’s order affected 12 postal districts spanning 15 states and came after the agency disclosed that 300,523 ballots nationwide received scanned that indicated they had entered postal processing plants, but had not received exit scans, leaving voting rights advocates worried that hundreds of thousands of votes could be trapped in the mail system on the eve of this most crucial election.

In a filing sent to the court just before 5 p.m., Justice Department attorneys representing the Postal Service said the agency would not abide by the order to better accommodate inspector’s schedules.

“This daily review process, however, occurs at different times every day,” DOJ attorney John Robinson wrote. “Specifically, on Election Night, it is scheduled to occur from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., a time period developed by Postal Service Management and the Postal Inspection Service in order to ensure that Inspectors are on site to ensure compliance at the critical period before the polls close. Given the time constraints set by this Court’s order, and the fact that Postal Inspectors operate on a nationwide basis, Defendants were unable to accelerate the daily review process to run from 12:30 p.m. to 3:00pm without significantly disrupting preexisting activities on the day of the Election, something which Defendants did not understand the Court to invite or require.”

Sullivan ordered officials from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Postal Service Office of Inspector General to inspect all processing facilities in the districts of Central Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Metro, Detroit, Colorado/Wyoming, Atlanta, Houston, Alabama, Northern New England (Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine), Greater South Carolina, South Florida, Lakeland (Wisconsin) and Arizona (which includes New Mexico) to be swept by 3 p.m.