The U.S. postal service (USPS) will deliver every ballot during November’s presidential election, pledged U.S. Postmaster General Luis DeJoy on Friday as he expressed support for mail-in ballots.
DeJoy was called in to testify in front of Congress after implementing a series of controversial changes to the postal service, including dismantling mailboxes and mail-sorting machines.
Some U.S. lawmakers expressed concern that the changes could delay mail delivery at a time when many Americans will be voting by mail as a safety precaution during the coronavirus pandemic.
DeJoy is a long-time Republican mega-donor with a background in logistics. Some U.S. lawmakers suspect that the recent changes he made to the U.S. postal service are politically motivated.
The postal service had previously warned that millions of mail-in ballots could arrive too late to be counted in the election.
But under oath on Friday, De Joy had a different message for members of Congress.
“I voted by mail for a number of years. The postal service will deliver every ballot and process every ballot in time that it receives,” he said. “I think the American public should be able to vote by mail and the postal service will support [that].”
He also promised to continue to treat mail-in ballots as first class mail, a move that could speed up the delivery of the ballots.
President Donald Trump has said that he opposed providing further funding for the postal service because he wants it to be more difficult for people to vote by mail.
The U.S. president claimed that mail-in ballots were vulnerable to voter fraud, a claim that was not supported by most experts.
DeJoy had already pledged to put the changes to the postal service on hold until after the election. (dpa/NAN)
