Yahoo News Federal judge in Washington DC orders 12 areas to look for uncounted ballots
Mail-in ballots in their envelopes await processing at the Los Angeles County Registrar Recorders’ mail-in ballot processing center in Pomona, California, on 28 October
( ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty)Post office workers in 12 different areas have been ordered to sweep their mail processing facilities by a federal judge in Washington DC.
District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that 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) must be inspected by 3pm local time.
He ordered the additional “all clear” checks at the request of civil rights groups, including the NAACP and Vote Forward.
They filed a case when it emerged that 300,000 ballots had been marked as entering postal facilities, but not confirmed as leaving them.
Judge Sullivan ordered that all stray ballots must be sent out immediately.
The Postal Service’s ability to handle the surge of mail-in ballots became a concern after its new leader, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor who unlike his predecessors had not risen through USPS ranks, implemented a series of policy changes that delayed mail nationwide this summer.
Delivery times have since rebounded but have consistently remained below the agency’s internal goals of having more than 95 per cent of first-class mail delivered within five days, with service in some battleground areas severely lagging, according to postal data.
The post office is feeling the strain of record numbers of mail-in ballots.
In the past five days of data, processing scores dropped from 97.1 per cent on 28 October, to 89.6 per cent on 2 November.
More than 65 million Americans have voted using absentee ballots, according to the United States Elections Project, and more than 27 million mail ballots remain outstanding, the Washington Post reported.
Experts are encouraged, however, by high ballot return rates in swing states that could soften the impact of mail delays.
In Michigan, 85.6 per cent of absentee ballots have been returned. In Wisconsin, 89.7 per cent have been returned, and in Pennsylvania, 80.9 per cent.
