'Someone may have to pay a price' for USPS's refusal to sweep for ballots, judge says

(Image credit: Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images)

published 4 November 2020

The United States Postal Service refused to listen to U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, and he isn't happy about it.

After the USPS revealed more than 300,000 ballots had entered postal processing plants but subsequently failed to receive "exit scans," indicating they might have been misplaced within the mail system, Sullivan ordered the Postal Service to perform a final sweep for those ballots. But the USPS said Tuesday night it wouldn't follow Sullivan's order in time to ensure the ballots in 15 critical states were accounted for before polls closed.

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But Sullivan wasn't standing for the USPS's "11th hour" decision not to comply, he said. "Someone may have to pay a price for that," Sullivan said, namely Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee who has come under fire for mismanagement ahead of an election expecting an unprecedented number of absentee ballots. "The postmaster's going to have to be deposed or appear before me. I'm not going to forget it," he added.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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