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This is some first-class bullshit.
First the USPS lost track of 300,000 ballots that cannot be traced, then Postmaster General Louis DeJoy defied a court order to do a "All Clear" ballot sweep of their facilities on Election Day, and SEVEN PERCENT of returned mailed-in ballot ended up missing the deadline because the USPS didn't process them in time.
Keep in mind that there are States that would not accept ANY late ballots received after Election Day, postmarked or not!
This is well beyond the Red vs. Blue tribal circus in the White House. Think about all the State, County, and City elections on the same ballot, as well as all the Propositions that will soon become local laws, and thousands of people living in those very jurisdictions and directly affected by them had zero say in any of it, for their votes are worthless by the time they are found - if they are found.
On the other hand, we have states like Pennsylvania who have their ballot-acceptance deadline extended from Election Day to Friday, effectively extending the match for another 3 days after the final whistle.
I really hope Judge Sullivan will throw the books at Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for defying that court order for ballot sweeps. And I REALLY hope Congress will legislate a same Federal deadline for Federal Election to all 50 States, like how we have the same taxes deadline no matter where we live. If not, we are going to see a hell lot more court battles over ballot deadlines extensions from here on out, as EVERYONE try to change the rule of the game via lawsuits.
Nearly 7 percent of ballots in U.S. Postal Service sorting facilities on Tuesday were not processed on time for submission to election officials, according to data the agency filed Wednesday in federal court, potentially leaving tens of thousands of ballots caught in the mail system during an especially tight presidential race.
The Postal Service reported the timely processing — which includes most mail-handling steps outside of pickup and delivery — of 93.3 percent of ballots on Election Day, its best processing score in several days, but still well below the 97-percent target that postal and voting experts say the agency should hit.
The Postal Service processed 115,630 ballots on Tuesday, a volume much lower than in recent days after weeks of warnings about chronic mail delays. Of that number, close to 8,000 ballots were not processed on time, a small proportion but one that could factor heavily in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, which do not accept ballots after Election Day and could be decided by a few thousand votes.
Earlier Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the District of Columbia had ordered the Postal Service to sweep 12 postal processing facilities that cover 15 states for ballots. But the agency rebuffed that order and said it would stick to its own inspection schedule, which voting rights advocates worried was too late in the day for found ballots to make it to vote counters.
The directive came after the Postal Service disclosed that more than 300,000 ballots nationwide could not be traced. Those ballots received entry bar code scans at processing facilities, but not exit scans. The agency said the likelihood of that many ballots being misplaced was very low; mail clerks had been ordered to sort ballots by hand in many locations, and items that were pulled out for expedited delivery were not given an exit scan.
“We know yesterday that if the sweeps were doing their job, mail that was identified as ballots and were in the system should have been pulled out and delivered, and it may be that affects what we see as the scores,” said Allison Zieve, an attorney representing the NAACP, which brought the lawsuit against the Postal Service with other civil and voting rights groups. “The problem is, in part because of the timing and in part because they haven’t given us all the information we asked for, it’s hard to know whether the numbers we saw today — the low scores for example in Atlanta and Central Pennsylvania — it’s hard to assess how big a problem that is.”
About 101 million Americans cast their ballots before election day, according to an early vote tally maintained by Michael McDonald at the University of Florida, with roughly 60 million others voting in-person on election day. Given the widely publicized issues with mail delivery, experts last week began advising absentee voters to drop off their ballots in-person rather than send them by mail. The high rates of early voting led to generally uncrowded conditions at polling places around the country on election day, although long lines were reported in some areas.
Sullivan had given the mail agency until 3:30 p.m. Tuesday to conduct the “all clear” checks to ensure that any found ballots could be delivered before polls closed. But 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 inspectors’ schedules.
Attorney John Robinson, writing for the Justice Department, noted that the daily review was already scheduled to occur from 4 to 8 p.m. on election night. “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 pm to 3:00 pm without significantly disrupting preexisting activities on the day of the Election, something which Defendants did not understand the Court to invite or require.”
“This is super frustrating,” Zieve said Tuesday. “If they get all the sweeps done today in time, it doesn’t matter if they flouted the judge’s order. They say here they will get the sweeps done between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., but 8 p.m. is too late, and in some states 5 p.m. is too late.”
Sullivan was incensed during Wednesday’s hearing over the sweeps, accusing the Postal Service of attempting to run the clock out on his order to avoid conducting the sweeps.
“It just leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth for the clock to run out — game’s over — and then to find out there was no compliance with a very important court order,” he said.
He said that at some point, he would order Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to appear before the court or sit through a sworn deposition, and intimated that he’d consider contempt charges against postal leadership, saying “someone might have to pay a price,” for defying his order.
The Postal Service continued Tuesday to try to track down the more than 300,000 ballots it said had entered processing plants but could not be traced. In 17 postal districts in swing states that account for 151 electoral votes, more than 81,000 ballots were untraceable. In Los Angeles, 48,120 ballots were missing, the most of any district. San Diego was next, with 42,543 unaccounted.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/03/election-ballot-delays-usps/?outputType=amp
First the USPS lost track of 300,000 ballots that cannot be traced, then Postmaster General Louis DeJoy defied a court order to do a "All Clear" ballot sweep of their facilities on Election Day, and SEVEN PERCENT of returned mailed-in ballot ended up missing the deadline because the USPS didn't process them in time.
Keep in mind that there are States that would not accept ANY late ballots received after Election Day, postmarked or not!
This is well beyond the Red vs. Blue tribal circus in the White House. Think about all the State, County, and City elections on the same ballot, as well as all the Propositions that will soon become local laws, and thousands of people living in those very jurisdictions and directly affected by them had zero say in any of it, for their votes are worthless by the time they are found - if they are found.
On the other hand, we have states like Pennsylvania who have their ballot-acceptance deadline extended from Election Day to Friday, effectively extending the match for another 3 days after the final whistle.
I really hope Judge Sullivan will throw the books at Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for defying that court order for ballot sweeps. And I REALLY hope Congress will legislate a same Federal deadline for Federal Election to all 50 States, like how we have the same taxes deadline no matter where we live. If not, we are going to see a hell lot more court battles over ballot deadlines extensions from here on out, as EVERYONE try to change the rule of the game via lawsuits.
USPS data shows thousands of mailed ballots missed Election Day deadlines
The Postal Service ignored a federal judge’s order to sweep processing plants on Tuesday after more than 300,000 scanned ballots could not be traced.
The Postal Service ignored a federal judge’s order to sweep processing plants on Tuesday after more than 300,000 scanned ballots could not be traced.
Nearly 7 percent of ballots in U.S. Postal Service sorting facilities on Tuesday were not processed on time for submission to election officials, according to data the agency filed Wednesday in federal court, potentially leaving tens of thousands of ballots caught in the mail system during an especially tight presidential race.
The Postal Service reported the timely processing — which includes most mail-handling steps outside of pickup and delivery — of 93.3 percent of ballots on Election Day, its best processing score in several days, but still well below the 97-percent target that postal and voting experts say the agency should hit.
The Postal Service processed 115,630 ballots on Tuesday, a volume much lower than in recent days after weeks of warnings about chronic mail delays. Of that number, close to 8,000 ballots were not processed on time, a small proportion but one that could factor heavily in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, which do not accept ballots after Election Day and could be decided by a few thousand votes.
Earlier Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the District of Columbia had ordered the Postal Service to sweep 12 postal processing facilities that cover 15 states for ballots. But the agency rebuffed that order and said it would stick to its own inspection schedule, which voting rights advocates worried was too late in the day for found ballots to make it to vote counters.
The directive came after the Postal Service disclosed that more than 300,000 ballots nationwide could not be traced. Those ballots received entry bar code scans at processing facilities, but not exit scans. The agency said the likelihood of that many ballots being misplaced was very low; mail clerks had been ordered to sort ballots by hand in many locations, and items that were pulled out for expedited delivery were not given an exit scan.
“We know yesterday that if the sweeps were doing their job, mail that was identified as ballots and were in the system should have been pulled out and delivered, and it may be that affects what we see as the scores,” said Allison Zieve, an attorney representing the NAACP, which brought the lawsuit against the Postal Service with other civil and voting rights groups. “The problem is, in part because of the timing and in part because they haven’t given us all the information we asked for, it’s hard to know whether the numbers we saw today — the low scores for example in Atlanta and Central Pennsylvania — it’s hard to assess how big a problem that is.”
About 101 million Americans cast their ballots before election day, according to an early vote tally maintained by Michael McDonald at the University of Florida, with roughly 60 million others voting in-person on election day. Given the widely publicized issues with mail delivery, experts last week began advising absentee voters to drop off their ballots in-person rather than send them by mail. The high rates of early voting led to generally uncrowded conditions at polling places around the country on election day, although long lines were reported in some areas.
Sullivan had given the mail agency until 3:30 p.m. Tuesday to conduct the “all clear” checks to ensure that any found ballots could be delivered before polls closed. But 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 inspectors’ schedules.
Attorney John Robinson, writing for the Justice Department, noted that the daily review was already scheduled to occur from 4 to 8 p.m. on election night. “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 pm to 3:00 pm without significantly disrupting preexisting activities on the day of the Election, something which Defendants did not understand the Court to invite or require.”
“This is super frustrating,” Zieve said Tuesday. “If they get all the sweeps done today in time, it doesn’t matter if they flouted the judge’s order. They say here they will get the sweeps done between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., but 8 p.m. is too late, and in some states 5 p.m. is too late.”
Sullivan was incensed during Wednesday’s hearing over the sweeps, accusing the Postal Service of attempting to run the clock out on his order to avoid conducting the sweeps.
“It just leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth for the clock to run out — game’s over — and then to find out there was no compliance with a very important court order,” he said.
He said that at some point, he would order Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to appear before the court or sit through a sworn deposition, and intimated that he’d consider contempt charges against postal leadership, saying “someone might have to pay a price,” for defying his order.
The Postal Service continued Tuesday to try to track down the more than 300,000 ballots it said had entered processing plants but could not be traced. In 17 postal districts in swing states that account for 151 electoral votes, more than 81,000 ballots were untraceable. In Los Angeles, 48,120 ballots were missing, the most of any district. San Diego was next, with 42,543 unaccounted.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/03/election-ballot-delays-usps/?outputType=amp
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