The agency suggested allowing at least 15 days to request a ballot, fueling further criticism that it was making it harder to vote during the pandemic.
The Postal Service has warned states that it may not be able to meet their deadlines for delivering last-minute mail-in ballots, further fueling the clash over the new postmaster general’s handling of vote-by-mail operations as President Trump continued to rail against the practice. In letters sent in July to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Thomas J. Marshall, the general counsel for the Postal Service, told most of them that “certain deadlines for requesting and casting mail-in ballots are incongruous with the Postal Service’s delivery standards.” As many states turn to vote-by-mail operations to carry out elections safely amid the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Marshall urged those with tight schedules to require that residents request ballots at least 15 days before an election — rather than the shorter periods currently allowed under the laws of many states. “This mismatch creates a risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail in time to be counted,” Mr. Marshall wrote. Many states have long allowed voters to request a mail ballot close to the election, but the Postal Service suggested that the large volume of voting by mail at a time of widespread delivery delays meant that states would be better off building more time into their systems. Mr. Marshall said Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Rhode Island should not have any trouble, based on their laws, while he requested more information from Vermont and Washington, D. C. The other 45 states, he told them in the letters, face the risk that the timetables set by their laws could leave some voters unable to get their ballots postmarked by Election Day or received by election boards in time to be counted. The letters prompted some states to consider changes that would give voters more time to vote by mail or ensure their ballot would be counted. And their release intensified the criticism directed at the Postal Service and Mr. Trump by Democrats and voting rights advocates, who say the president is deliberately stoking unfounded concerns that voting by mail will lead to fraud and miscounts as a way to cast doubt about the outcome of the election. Word that the letters had been sent across the country, first reported by The Washington Post, came as the Postal Service’s inspector general said she had begun an investigation into the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a Republican megadonor and Trump ally who was appointed in May. Democrats in Congress who had urged the inspector general inquiry said they expected it to encompass operational changes to the mail service imposed by Mr. DeJoy and questions about his personal finances, including his ownership of stock in a Postal Service contractor and options in a competitor. In response to the warning letters, some states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan, have called for extensions on counting late-arriving ballots in the November election. “We have asked the Legislature to change Michigan law to allow ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive within a certain window to be counted,” said Tracy Wimmer, a spokeswoman for Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson.
