RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 8 sourcesPostal Service illegally defied court orders with ‘secretive’ and ‘rushed’ process to implement new rules, anonymous official says
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An anonymous federal official has warned members of Congress that Donald Trump’s “secretive, rushed” and “chaotic” plans for the U.S. Postal Service to implement new rules for mail-in ballots could disenfranchise millions of voters this fall.
Tuesday’s whistleblower report outlines “potentially catastrophic problems” with the administration’s brand-new system , including a “zero-percent failure policy” that could reject tens of thousands of ballots at a time if any single mistakes are made, including misread barcodes or inadvertent errors from postal workers.
Postal officials and IT specialists called it a “mess” and a “s*** show” that illegally defied court orders against putting the new ballot-tracking system in place ahead of crucial midterm elections, according to the report.
“We are crossing the Rubicon of American elections,” said Libby Liu, CEO of WhistleblowerAid.org, which is representing the anonymous official who submitted the complaints.
“This dangerously defective mail-in ballot process could disenfranchise millions of voters, ensnaring ballots in red tape under the guise of solving a non-existent problem,” she added. “People in states that rely heavily on vote-by-mail will have a more difficult time making their voices heard in our challenged democracy this November. The whistleblower’s service to our nation is warning the public that their ability to vote is in serious jeopardy.”
Federal courts have repeatedly blocked the Postal Service from implementing Trump’s executive order on mail-in ballots, which called for the creation of a national voter registration list that would be used to decide who is eligible to cast a ballot.
On August 21, the USPS published its new certification requirements, changes that could not go into effect until federal courts lifted an injunction against them. The Supreme Court allowed Trump’s executive order to stand, for now, leaving the door open for lawsuits to proceed against the new USPS rules themselves.
Three days after the Supreme Court’s decision, District Judge Indira Talwani issued a temporary restraining order that blocks the changes, but the administration is continuing to fight the case in court to overhaul mail-in voting rules just weeks before Election Day.
Dozens of election officials from across the country have repeatedly warned that a last-minute scramble to upload lists of voters into an online portal designed by USPS would amount to an unconstitutional attack on election administration that would only sow more confusion and introduce potentially catastrophic errors.
If the plans are allowed to go into effect, USPS workers would be required to scan barcodes on a sample of envelopes to ensure the voters appear on the state’s list, according to the whistleblower report. If there is even one mismatch, that whole batch of ballots — which could be in the thousands at a time — could be rejected, the whistleblower said.
“As designed, the process is entirely unforgiving,” according to the report. “It could delay ballots by the thousands in repeated verification cycles — and thus prevent states from mailing enormous numbers of ballots.”
USPS and the Department of Justice have repeatedly defended the program, though election officials fear the government’s list could be dangerously too slow to reflect changes from the states.
“Their system is set up to fail — and risk the right to vote for millions of Americans who cast their ballots by mail,” according to Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, whose office received the whistleblower report.
“Given this new information, such sloppiness and haste seems clearly part of a purposeful attempt to create chaos and prevent people from voting,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “I am demanding answers and accountability.”
Voting rights groups fear the president’s efforts to centralize control over election administration , which is left to the states under the Constitution, is an attempt to boost Republican candidates and suppress Democratic turnout during an election that is likely to determine the balance of power in Congress — and the fate of Trump’s remaining years in office.
Trump spent years baselessly insisting that voting by mail is ripe for fraud, and that manipulated ballots were “rigged” against him in elections he lost. He complained throughout 2020 elections that Republicans would “never” win without changing rules for voting by mail, which he has called “inherently corrupt” and “cheating” despite routinely casting his own ballots by mail.
The administration is pushing for mail-in ballot changes in court while the president simultaneously demands Senate passage his SAVE America Act, which would also severely restrict mail-in voting and impose nationwide voter ID rules, among other changes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has repeatedly expressed doubts about sacrificing the filibuster to pass Trump’s bill. Still, Trump has tried to argue for its passage in increasingly desperate terms, including not ruling out the possibility of a national emergency to put the rules in place.
“The crown jewel of American democracy, our historic record of free and fair elections, deserves so much better than this slipshod effort,” WhistleblowerAid.org senior vice president and special counsel David Kligerman, who is representing the whistleblower, said in a statement.
States are scrambling to prepare for midterm elections, with impending deadlines for voters to receive ballots that can be filled out and returned in time to count by November.
Officials in North Carolina have already started preparing ballots under a new state law requiring voters to start receiving them 60 days before an election. More states are set to start mailing out ballots in the coming days and weeks.
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