On Election Day, federal judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the United States Postal Service to conduct a sweep of processing facilities and to deliver outstanding mail-in ballots. But the USPS defied the court Tuesday, and ballots from voters across the country are unaccounted for, potentially disenfranchising thousands of Americans in the high-stakes election.
Sullivan had directed the USPS to scour 12 facilities, covering 15 states, for ballots on Election Day. But the Postal Service didn’t comply with the order, sticking instead to its original inspection schedule. The agency said it completed its sweep Wednesday morning, ahead of a hearing on 300,000 ballots that did not receive exit scans confirming their delivery and feared by Sullivan and voting rights advocates to have gone uncounted. The USPS suggested the ballots may not have been lost, noting to the New York Times that the lack of final scans does not mean they were not delivered. Still, the unaccounted for ballots have fueled concerns that scores of votes have been caught up in the delivery delays that have sprung up following changes by Trump’s Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy. “Every election sees some portion of voters disenfranchised because their ballots arrive late,” the Hill’s John Kruzel wrote. “But it is safe to assume the problem has been exacerbated by USPS delays.”
The controversy over the mail-in votes come amid a tight, tense race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which is now poised to swing on absentee ballots in a handful of swing states. After an election night that had some Democrats recalling unpleasant memories of 2016—and in which Trump, as expected, prematurely declared victory—Biden’s prospects have seemed to significantly improve into Wednesday. Biden and Kamala Harris appear to have won Wisconsin, a state key to Trump’s victory four years ago, and the campaign seems to be feeling bullish about its path to the White House as mail-in ballots are tabulated in Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Biden has also already smashed through the nation’s popular vote record, receiving nearly 70 million by midday Wednesday—the most any presidential candidate, including Barack Obama, has ever received. Trump’s anxiety has seemed to rise with the Biden camp’s confidence, blasting out lies on Twitter that the votes being tallied up are fraudulent. “They are finding Biden votes all over the place — in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan,” he wrote in one missive. “So bad for our Country!” “They are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear — ASAP,” he added in another, which got slapped with warning label on Twitter. “Likewise, Michigan and others!”
There’s no basis for this—the mail-in ballots being counted now are every bit as legitimate as those cast on Election Day—but the claims are a preview of the challenges to vote counts to come, including in Wisconsin, where the Trump campaign is already demanding a recount. How much those unaccounted for ballots would factor into the race remains to be seen, but the potential disenfranchisement of thousands who voted by mail would be appalling on its own terms, and in a hearing Wednesday, Sullivan suggested that there could be consequences for the USPS’s open defiance of a court order. “I’m not pleased about this 11th hour development last night,” Sullivan said, adding that DeJoy will be ordered to court and could face a contempt motion if his orders go unheeded. “And someone may have a price to pay.”
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