U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington on Tuesday morning ordered the US Postal Service to sweep their facilities in a dozen districts for missing ballots unaccounted for.
The USPS admitted their delivery performance had dropped over the last five days and could not say whether 300,000 ballots had been delivered.
Those districts included were in battleground states like Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
Judge Sullivan gave the agency until 3:30pm Tuesday to perform the sweep, but at 4:30 the USPS responded to Sullivan’s order, saying they were unable to conduct the sweep because it would have “significantly” disrupted its Election Day activities. Instead, the agency said, it would continue its preplanned daily review process in its 220 facilities nationwide that process ballots and would try to deliver any remaining ballots.
In a response to the Postal Service later on Tuesday, Sullivan wrote that because postal inspectors were scheduled to be onsite at processing facilities from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and work to resolve issues as quickly as possible, he would let the process continue. However, he admonished that federal officials should be prepared to “discuss the apparent lack of compliance” at a hearing at noon Wednesday.
Report from USA Today.