Georgia Senate runoff: USPS agrees to treat ballots as express mail

Georgia Senate runoff: USPS agrees to treat ballots as express mail

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The plan – signed by a federal judge on Wednesday, according to documents filed in an ongoing federal lawsuit – revives similar measures implemented for the November elections this year, after several federal courts intervened as de facto post office monitors to make certain that their practices would not deprive absentee votes.

It comes amid an urge for greater oversight of USPS operations this year, after fears that President Donald Trump would try to prevent the postal vote, also known as absent. The plan will keep the USPS under intensified scrutiny until at least January 5, when Senate control is at stake in two disputes that were not decided in November because no one obtained a majority of the votes in any of the disputes.

The USPS agreement for the courier service in Georgia, which is now under court order, establishes procedures for ballots sent locally in the state to reach the electoral council on the same day, with special attention to arrive at 7 pm on the day of election.

The USPS, several states and the courts took special care before the November election to ensure that votes cast in good faith by mail would not be rejected if they arrived after election day, as the legality of these late ballots was still up for grabs. In states that were run in the presidential election, there were not enough ballots to influence the winner.

“The USPS must coordinate with the Georgia BOEs to make arrangements to deliver all ballot papers to the BOE before 7 pm local time on January 5, 2020,” the agreement said this week.

The Republicans Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are defending their seats against their respective Democratic opponents, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. If the Democrats invert the two seats, they will control the Senate, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, as President of the Senate, could break ties in the House.

With the high risk of Senate disputes, several Georgians are voting early. As of Thursday, more than 2 million Georgians have voted, with more than 721,000 absentee votes accepted. Early voting started on December 14 and runs through December 31. Georgia also had a high turnout in the general election, after which President-elect Joe Biden barely changed the state of the blue for the first time in 28 years.
This is not the first time that the USPS has been placed in the center of political attention. In August, Trump said he was opposed to funding the organization because he did not want to see the money used in the vote by mail. Throughout his campaign, Trump stated without foundation that the practice would lead to voter fraud.

This holiday season, the USPS is going through an especially difficult period, with an unprecedented volume of packages and limited staff to process them due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In November, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy signaled that he would propose a plan to reform the USPS in “the coming months”.

Paul Murphy and Devon Sayers contributed to this report.

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