Lawmakers worry whether Postal Service can handle mail ballots

Lawmakers said during a contentious congressional hearing Thursday they are uneasy about the U.S. Postal Service’s readiness for a crush of mail ballots for the November election because some of them feel burned by other Postal Service actions.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy sought to reassure a House Appropriations subcommittee that the Postal Service is well-positioned for an extraordinary effort to deliver mail ballots to election officials on time to be counted and that close to 100% will make it promptly. In recent weeks, DeJoy has pushed back on suggestions from state and local election officials that the Postal Service has not addressed problems that led to mail ballots arriving too late or without postmarks, disenfranchising those voters.

But as subcommittee members asked DeJoy about how the Postal Service has addressed election officials' concerns, they criticized a larger, 10-year plan to make the mail delivery system more efficient and less costly by consolidating mail processing centers, suggesting it could slow mail delivery, particularly in rural areas. DeJoy disputed that.