For all those worrier about the USPS, my colleagues @protctdemocracy are quoted here on countermeasures to protect it. Here’s what they said (thread):
slate.com/news-and-polit…
slate.com/news-and-polit…
Marsden and Schwartztol emphasize the importance of oversight and transparency, noting that Congress should investigate, and that their organization has also filed a lawsuit to force USPS to disclose its preparations for the election.
If the mail jam that is clearly already underway extends into the election, they say, officials will need to extend the receipt date for absentee ballots.
“Wherever possible, governors or other state officials should exercise emergency powers provided by state law to extend that deadline,” they write. “Where state law does not provide that authority—or where state officials refuse to act—the courts have a role to play.”
Further, state bureaucrats should be “creating broad access to drop boxes, so that voters who receive ballots with insufficient time to have them returned by mail have a safe and reliable alternative. Breakdowns in mail delivery will also increase the pressure on in-person voting
That means that election officials will need to double down on ensuring that safe options exist for a higher proportion of in-person voters than many states may be planning for.”
Emergency litigation against the USPS could also help. “To the extent that slowdowns or other failures are a result of the Postmaster General’s recently announced changes in mail delivery practices—and assuming those changes remain in place in the fall—the negative impact on....
election mail would likely represent a violation of the federal statutes governing the postal service as well as the U.S. Constitution’s protection for the right to vote,” they write. “While time would be agonizingly short for litigation to play out if this situation....
materializes negatively impacted voters as well as candidates and others who may be harmed should ask a court to impose emergency measures to ensure that the USPS operates at full capacity throughout the election period.”
Full article again: slate.com/news-and-polit…
