USPS fails to meet court-ordered deadline for mail-in ballot sweep

During a court hearing on Nov. 4 for a lawsuit filed by the NAACP, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the US Postal Service to conduct an immediate sweep of their Texas facilities for leftover mail-in ballots. 

The Texas Tribune reported that in the following hours on Wednesday, 815 previously unprocessed ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 were obtained and mailed to the appropriate counties. 

The court mandate came after the agency failed to meet the initial Election Day deadline to collect undelivered ballots across multiple states by 3:30 p.m. EST. Attorneys from the Department of Justice claimed that, since the review process usually begins at 4 p.m, USPS was unable to perform inspections due to scheduling conflicts.

USPS did not notify the federal judge about the delay, although the agency denied that any mail-in ballots were left unaccounted for. According to statistics disclosed by the USPS, over 300,000 ballots were received by processing locations but were never scanned for outbound delivery. 

Kevin Bray, a USPS official who has overseen election mail operations for the past month, told the court that the untraceable ballots may have been marked for express delivery. 

Sullivan responded to the agency’s lack of compliance by suggesting that USPS Chief Louis DeJoy, a prominent GOP donor, could be forced to testify in court. "Someone may have a price to pay," he said. 

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other civil rights groups, including Vote Forward, sued the Postal Service in August for their inadequate handling of the vote by mail procedure.