Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison joined 12 other state attorneys general Tuesday in a lawsuit to block U.S. Postal Service policies that they say could keep mail-in ballots from being counted in time for the upcoming presidential election.
The suit was filed around the time that U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced that was suspending those policies until after the election to “avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.”
Ellison’s move joins Minnesota to a suit led by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and backed by other Democratic attorneys general in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro led a second suit Tuesday with a coalition that included California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.
The two suits raise concerns about voter disenfranchisement, growing in part from President Donald Trump’s attacks on mail-in ballots, which he argues could be subject to fraud. Democrats have pushed mail-in balloting as a safer alternative to in-person voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports of fraud have been rare in states that use mail-in balloting.
Ellison and many postal union officials have said that recent postal service changes implemented to cut costs have resulted in a significant slowdown of mail deliveries, potentially threatening the timely arrival of mail-in ballots. He cited reports that mail-sorting capability in the Twin Cities has been reduced to 100,000 pieces of mail per hour, down from 200,000 per hour.
Ellison charged that three mail sorting machines in Minnesota had been decommissioned and six more were expected to be taken down in the near future.