USPS (US Postal Service) Postmaster General Louis DeJoy came under fire from for the way he is running the post office, as well as his huge financial transactions, and it looks like things aren't getting better for him. A federal judge issued a historic decision to temporarily block him from making any sort of changes in the USPS protocols or policies ahead of the impending presidential election.
Eastern Washington's US District Court's Judge Stanley Bastian touted Trump administration postal policies as harmful to voters' to cast ballots in Nov., and described it as suppressive to voters. Moreover, this decision places Bastian at the center of a political furor in which the court takes an extraordinary step of restricting the entire USPS from making any sort of changes that may affect the agency's efficiency of delivering mail across the United States.
While it is not apparent on the surface, Bastian wrote that at the heart of Postal Service's and DeJoy's actions are aimed at depriving voters of their right to vote. He went on to point out that Donald Trump's highly partisan tweets and words are just voter disenfranchisement.
Bastian said the impact of the changes introduced on the primary elections that led to uncounted ballots, coupled with the latest attempts and lawsuits by the president and Republican National Committee to stop the States' attempt to go past the Postal Service by using ballot drop boxes, and the timing of the changes, CNN reported.
He deemed the recently introduced changes in Postal Services as an intentional attempt on the part of Trump's administration to hinder and challenge the legitimacy of the impending local, state, and federal elections. Bastian also pointed out that 72 percent of the decommissioned high-speed mail sorting machines were placed in counties where Hillary Clinton received a lot of votes in 2016.
Bastian ordered the USPS to undo all the changes it made in the last few months, including only one DeJoy has taken ownership of. DeJoy had significantly restricted late and extra trips, the decision said.
The decision also mandates that all election mail must be treated as first-class mail, regardless of postage. Furthermore, it states that USPS must inform the court of all requests and be instructed to reconnect mail sorting machines within three days of the order or within three days of a future request.
In an earlier court hearing, Bastian said that Trump and DeJoy are making a politically motivated attack on the Postal Service's efficiency. A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general sued the agency last month, accusing DeJoy of breaking the law when he implemented policy changes that disturbed mail delivery across the nation.