Chief Judge Stanley A. Bastian of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington on Thursday night granted a request to block operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service.
Democratic officials from 14 states sought the injunction, and the decision in their favor stated that President Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy are intentionally interfering with the postal system for political gain.
“The states have demonstrated that the defendants are involved in a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service,” Bastian said. “They have also demonstrated that this attack on the Postal Service is likely to irreparably harm the states’ ability to administer the 2020 general election.”
The ruling, which you can read here, includes a stinging indictment of the Trump administration’s efforts, which the judge said amount to “voter disenfranchisement”:
“Although not necessarily apparent on the surface, at the heart of DeJoy’s and the Postal Service’s actions is voter disenfranchisement. This is evident in President Trump’s highly partisan words and tweets, the actual impact of the changes on primary elections that resulted in uncounted ballots, and recent attempts and lawsuits by the Republican National Committee and President Trump’s campaign to stop the States’ efforts to bypass the Postal Service by utilizing ballot drop boxes, as well as the timing of the changes. It is easy to conclude that the recent Postal Services’ changes is an intentional effort on the part the current Administration to disrupt and challenge the legitimacy of upcoming local, state, and federal elections, especially given that 72% of the decommissioned high speed mail sorting machines that were decommissioned were located in counties where Hillary Clinton receive the most votes in 2016.”
Donald Lee Moak, a member of the USPS Board of Governors, denied the accusation. “Any suggestion that there is a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service is completely and utterly without merit,” Moak said, according to The Washington Post.
