Postmaster General vows ‘we are not slowing down’ voting by mail

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is pledging that the U.S. Postal Service will do everything it can "to deliver election mail in a timely manner consistent with our operational standards.”

DeJoy, a longtime ally and major fundraiser for President Trump who was appointed recently to steer the Postal Service, emphasized Friday during a Board of Governors meeting that, “despite any assertions to the contrary, we are not slowing down election mail or any other mail. Instead, we continue to employ a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling of all election mail."

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Some of those assertions have come from the president, who has for months railed against the push by many states to increase voting by mail due to health concerns of in-person balloting at polling stations amid the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has repeatedly claimed that a surge in voting by mail would lead to massive voter fraud.

Pointing to the Postal Service’s financial woes, on Monday the president cast doubt on whether the Postal Service could handle the expected surge in voting by mail.

"The Post Office for many, many years has been, you know, run in a fashion that hasn't been great -- great workers and everything, but they have old equipment, very old equipment," Trump said. "And I don't think the Post Office is prepared for a thing like this. You have to ask the people at the Post Office, but how can the Post Office be expected to handle?"

The Postal Service quickly responded that it has "ample capacity" to handle the expected voting by mail surge. On Friday, DeJoy acknowledged “there will likely be an unprecedented increase in election mail volume due to the pandemic,” but he pledged that “the Postal Service has ample capacity to deliver all election mail securely and on time.”

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And pointing to his close relationship with a president who’s currently battling for another four years in the White House and who has frequently criticized the Postal Service, DeJoy insisted: “While I certainly have a good relationship with the president ... the notion that I would ever make decisions concerning the Postal Service at the direction of the president or anyone else in the administration is wholly off base.”