The U.S. Postal Service’s attempt to carry out President Trump’s orders to control mail balloting in this year’s election is “potentially catastrophic” and could block millions of people from casting their votes by mail, according to a new whistleblower report.
Internally, employees called the process “a s—- show,” according to the anonymous whistleblower, whose allegations were collected and sent to Congress by the group Whistleblower Aid.
Postal Service leaders may also have violated court orders by working on the plans despite legal injunctions, failing to do the extensive testing needed to ensure the system would work, the report says.
Problems include impossible deadlines and insurmountable standards for states. In one example, the report said that if a state submits 10,000 mail ballots and one of them is flagged as potentially ineligible, the whole batch would be rejected until the state can correct the error.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who publicized the report, called the issues “alarming.”
“Taken together they present a clear picture of a fatally flawed process that cannot and will not protect American voters,” he said in a letter to Postmaster General David Steiner. “Put plainly: this process will likely lead to chaos, confusion, and the inability of many Americans to have their vote counted.”
The Washington Times has sought comment from the Postal Service.
The allegations come as the legal battle intensifies over Mr. Trump’s mail-ballot policing plans.
During the past month, a federal district court put the plans on hold, the Postal Service released a final version of its plans, the Supreme Court erased the district court blockade, and that lower judge imposed a new restraining order.
That is now being appealed to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The whistleblower report appears to confirm the worst fears of the Democrat-led states and voting rights groups that have sued to stop Mr. Trump.
The president argues that noncitizens and other ineligible voters are distorting elections, with mail ballots being the chief vulnerability.
His opponents say noncitizen voting is rare and does not affect election outcomes.
Under the Postal Service’s final rule, states that want to allow voting by mail would have to submit lists of eligible voters to the USPS. States would then have to use approved envelopes to send the ballots out and get them back — and they must be marked with unique barcodes so they can be tracked.
The lists would be submitted to a Postal Service portal.
The whistleblower report says the construction of the portal has been rushed and testing was short-circuited.
The portal was supposed to launch on Tuesday, just three months after planning began. The whistleblower said the USPS should have allowed for a year.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Mr. Trump is trying to turn the Postal Service “into a voter suppression machine.”
“Vote-by-mail is safe and secure. Trump himself voted by mail just last month,” the senator said.
Mr. Trump cast an absentee ballot in Florida’s primary by mail.
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