Trump's week in review: USPS whistleblower; birth tourism order blocked; ballroom gets green light
4. USPS creating mail-in ballot processing system
The U.S. Postal Service is developing a mail-in ballot processing system that critics warn could lead to disenfranchisement of those who are not voting in person.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that the new system requires states to tell USPS which voters will be given ballots so they can be verified before delivery.
According to a whistleblower letter sent Sunday to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.,
ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, an anonymous USPS staffer had “grave concerns that the administration has hidden the high likelihood that the new ballot mail verification processes will result in major disruptions in mail ballots ever getting delivered to voters.”
“As presently designed, if even one bar code on one single ballot in a bulk-mailing of 10,000 ballots fails to properly scan during the verification process, the entire batch is rejected and sent back to the state — effectively stopping the ballots from being mailed to voters,” continued the letter.
“The Whistleblower is particularly concerned that the Portal (where the bar codes are stored) will almost certainly have significant operating problems when released to the public, due to the rushed IT development; this will contribute to failures in the verification process.”
The effort is being done at the behest of President Trump, who has often made unsubstantiated claims of substantial voter fraud involving mail-in ballots.
In a March order, Trump claimed that the efforts were to “enhance election integrity” and “enable confirmation that only citizens receive and cast ballots, reducing the risk of fraud and protecting the integrity of Federal elections.”
The March order is the subject of much litigation; state officials, voting rights groups and Democratic officials have filed lawsuits challenging its implementation.
