Conn. sues U.S Postal Service
14 states join in lawsuit over mail delivery delays
STAMFORD – Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced Tuesday that he will halt some changes to the U.S. Postal Service that critics say are delaying delivery and could disrupt the flow of mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election.
It happened about the same time that Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and his counterparts in 13 states announced they’ve filed a federal lawsuit charging that DeJoy bypassed federal laws that dictate how such sweeping changes can be made.
Tong, a Stamford resident, had three words Tuesday for DeJoy’s abrupt reversal.
“It’s not enough,” Tong said.
DeJoy, he said, “needs to roll back the damage that’s been done to the reliability of the mail, he needs to agree to not take another step to impair service, he
needs to commit to prepare for the volume of mail that will come with this election, and he needs to do it in writing so we can enforce it. Until we get that, we will continue the lawsuit we filed this afternoon.”
President Donald Trump named DeJoy — a Trump and Republican Party megadonor — postmaster general in May.
Trump has said DeJoy was changing the postal service to make it profitable.
The 14 attorneys general, however, allege that the changes are to ensure that Trump, who has asserted that voting by mail is “rigged” and “fraudulent,” gets re-elected on Nov. 3.
Tong said Trump cannot impose “arbitrary new conditions on the postal service to suit his political needs.” The lawsuit, which names Trump and DeJoy, asserts that the postal service acted outside of its authority by failing to implement changes according to federal law.
Changes that affect mail service nationwide must be evaluated by the Postal Regulatory Commission, which invites public comment, Tong said.
“They didn’t do that.
They just blew through the rules,” Tong said. “State attorneys general have been successful to date with claims that the Trump administration doesn’t follow rules.”
Tong said that, before LeJoy took the helm, instate first-class mail could be expected to be delivered within two days in Connecticut. Now delays of a week or more are routine, he said.
Mail sorting machines that handle 30,000 letters per hour are being removed from processing facilities, forcing postal workers to sort it by hand at the same time that overtime is being cut, Tong said. Trucks are dispatched without waiting for mail to be sorted and loaded, he said.
“Medicine is not being delivered on time to sick seniors. Child support payments are arriving late to financially insecure mothers. Small businesses are getting paid late and cannot deliver their products on time,” he said, adding that rent, worker’s compensation, disability and other payments are also showing up late.
On Tuesday DeJoy issued a statement saying, “We will deliver the nation’s election mail on time.”
DeJoy said he would “suspend” several of his initiatives — including the removal of blue mail boxes — until after the election “to avoid even the appearance of impact on election mail.”
DeJoy said Tuesday he also is halting the planned removal of mail-processing machines, as well as an initiative to change retail hours at post offices. He also said that no mail processing facilities will be closed and said the agency has not eliminated overtime.
Tong said problems in the Postal Service already revealed themselves in the primary vote.
“Some Connecticut residents were already denied their right to vote when their August absentee ballots arrived late,” he said.
Several Stamford residents are posting on social media sites that they are among those who received their absentee ballots for the Aug. 11 presidential primary days afterward, even though the ballots were postmarked a week to 10 days before the primary. Some voters never got their ballots at all, Tong said.
“Our phones have been ringing off the hook on all manner of complaints,” Tong said. “People are not getting their cholesterol medicine, their invoices for their small business, their home health-care products, school notices, financial information. It’s all delayed beyond the two days that we rely on.”
A particular concern is that the postal service has notified states that ballots will no longer be processed as first-class mail, regardless of what type of postage is used, Tong said. States that use bulk-rate postage for ballots could see delays that might prevent some votes from being counted on Nov. 3, he said.
Trump has said that if the country switched to all mail voting, “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut’s 4th District, which includes Stamford, shares Tong’s skepticism. Himes, who will return to Washington, D.C., for a Saturday House of Representatives vote on a proposal to block the Trump administration’s plan for overhauling the postal service, visited Stamford’s West Avenue postal facility Tuesday to see what changes were made there.
“We don’t take them at their word,” Himes said of Trump and DeJoy.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday was led by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Besides Connecticut, the coalition includes Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont,
Virginia and Wisconsin.
Another coalition led by Pennsylvania was to file a similar suit. It includes California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts and North Carolina. Tong said other states are considering individual lawsuits.
In the suit involving Connecticut, the attorneys general are asking the court to block the new policies and “fully and immediately restore the postal service.”
Tong said voters in Connecticut should know that his office, the office of the Secretary of the State, Gov. Ned Lamont and their representatives in Washington will do everything within their authority to see that the election is fair and accurate.
“People should vote, and vote confidently,” he said. “That being said, I would not have sued if I did not think the president is serious about his intention — he admitted he intends to undermine the postal service and impair people’s ability to vote by mail and absentee ballot. No one should panic, but everyone should know this is a very real issue that we have to fight.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.