President Biden is making appointments to the U.S. Postal Service to save mail-in ballots, an attorney has said.
Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor, said it is part of a political struggle within the postal service.
Republican lawyers fighting against mail-in ballots recently wrote in a court briefing that they disproportionately favor Democratic Party candidates.
Vance wrote in her legal blog, Civil Discourse, on Monday that Biden nominated former Florida Congresswoman Val Demings and Republican businessman William Zollars to the board of governors as a way of exercising more control.
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In March, Biden appointed former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.
The board consists of 11 people, nine of whom are nominated by the President, similar to a Supreme Court judge.
The two other members of the board are the Postmaster General and the Deputy Postmaster General.
Vance, a liberal Democrat, said that Biden is seeking to remove Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
“The good news is that this is an essential stop towards replacing Louis DeJoy, Trump’s Postmaster General, who is still in place.”
“DeJoy put measures in place that he claimed were designed to cut costs but that, in practice, seriously impaired mail delivery,” Vance alleged.
“In one notorious move, he dismantled sorting machines. This resulted in massive backlogs and serious delivery delays. It just so happened that led to major slowdowns in swing states just ahead of the 2020 election that resulted in tens of thousands of ballots arriving too late to be counted,” she added.
Newsweek sought email comment from DeJoy’s office on Tuesday.
Vance said that Biden is shaping the board to get rid of DeJoy.
“Only the Board can remove the Postmaster…The seven-year terms mean that it has taken this long for Biden to have sufficient openings to change the balance on the Board,” she wrote.
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On Monday, a federal judge rejected a Republican challenge to a Mississippi law that allows the counting of mail-in ballots after an election.
The law allows the votes to be counted up to five days after an election so long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
Judge Louis Guirola wrote that the challenge stands or falls “on whether the Mississippi absentee ballots statute conflicts with federal law, in which case Plaintiffs say their rights would be violated.” He said he found no such potential violation.
The RNC claimed that postal voting “harms” Republican voters, who are less likely to vote by mail.
Newsweek sought email comment from the RNC on Tuesday.
It is particularly important as the 2024 presidential election is expected to be a tight race.
The latest poll shows that Vice President Kamala Harris has seen a significant boost in her approval ratings while Donald Trump’s has fallen.
An ABC News/Ipsos survey of 1,200 adults released on Sunday showed that Harris’ favorability rating stands at 43 percent.
Trump’s favorability rating has fallen 4 points from 40 percent to 36.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.