According to court filings, the Postal Service “found” hundreds of ballots in facilities in North Carolina and Pennsylvania on Thursday, as The New York Times puts it. Thursday was, of course, the second day after Election Day, and it’s not immediately clear how long that all of these ballots had been languishing inside Postal Service facilities. Both Pennsylvania and North Carolina are currently accepting ballots that were received after Election Day, although these ballots must have been sent by Election Day to remain valid. Pennsylvania’s deadline is Friday, and North Carolina’s deadline for receiving civilians’ absentee ballots is November 12, which is next Thursday.
The Postal Service found hundreds of ballots in Pennsylvania and North Carolina facilities on Thursday, according to data filed in federal court. https://t.co/dKOJabAJqz
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 6, 2020
Those ballots were found on the same day that federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the Postal Service to conduct sweeps of some facilities and look for overlooked or delayed ballots. The Postal Service told the court that they delivered the ballots that they found in Pennsylvania and North Carolina to election authorities in the respective states, although there are still issues. The Times notes that, based on Postal Service reports, the agency’s handling of nearly 11 percent of the ballots in the system as of Thursday did not appear to meet their own self-set standards for efficient and prompt delivery. Across Thursday as a whole, the Postal Service delivered some 40,000 ballots to authorities. (A slew of states count ballots that arrive after Election Day as long as they were sent before Election Day ended.)
U.S. Postal Service delivered 40,000 votes nationwide Thursday: lawyer https://t.co/TKPxYjgMV0
— John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) November 6, 2020
Although the Postal Service says that they delivered the ballots that they found on Thursday, there is one hitch — ballots that have been received in Pennsylvania after Election Day have been in a sort of legal limbo, as Republicans have been fighting to get them thrown out. In a previous ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, four justices indicated their support for a GOP request to throw out the deadline extension in Pennsylvania. At the time of that original ruling, Trump’s latest Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, was not yet confirmed to the court, and her presence could swing another decision from the court on the same issue. Republicans are still pressing for action, and ballots received after Election Day in Pennsylvania have been kept separate.
Pennsylvania and North Carolina were both high-profile targets during the current election cycle. As of Friday afternoon, Biden led in Pennsylvania and Trump led in North Carolina. Biden was leading in enough states to secure the presidency once the status of the race was more clear, and his leads included a thin lead in Georgia.
The stunningly close margin in Georgia proves even more vividly the crucial nature of counting every last vote. The people’s voice must be heard. As of Friday afternoon, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had a razor-thin leading margin in Georgia, which he gained as mail-in votes were counted. Trump had led the previous day, and on Twitter, he even said that his campaign “claimed” the state “for Electoral Vote purposes” — although that declaration has no substantive impact on the election outcome whatsoever. Trump’s “claim” of a given state does not change vote tallies that local election authorities will continue to handle according to established legal and democratic precedents, whether Trump likes it or not.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that there’s some kind of nationwide conspiracy to steal the election from him via including invalid votes, but this claim is utter nonsense. There’s no nationwide conspiracy here. The voters rejected him! And it’s time for him to accept reality and stop threatening the basic democratic processes of the United States with his belligerent and cultish nonsense!
