The U.S. Postal Service blew a court-ordered deadline Tuesday to sweep mail-processing facilities in more than a dozen states for missing election ballots that could number in the hundreds of thousands.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington ordered the sweep Tuesday morning after the Postal Service said its delivery performance had dropped over the past five days and could not say whether more than 300,000 ballots received in its facilities had been delivered.
The sweep was to happen in 12 postal districts, including in battleground states Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
Sullivan gave the agency until 3:30 p.m. to finish the task.
The Postal Service said in its update to Sullivan at 4:30 p.m. that it was unable to conduct the sweep because it would have “significantly” disrupted its Election Day activities. Instead, the agency said, it would continue its preplanned daily review process in its 220 facilities nationwide that process ballots and would try to deliver any remaining ballots.
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The window is closing fast. The deadline for mail-in ballots was at the close of polls Tuesday night or had already passed in 29 states…
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