A federal judge blocked changes to the U.S. Postal Service on Thursday that have resulted in a slowdown of mail delivery across the country.
Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, said the changes, which were spearheaded by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, could disenfranchise voters before the November election. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the election is expected to see a record high volume of mail-in ballots.
Bastian said he would issue a preliminary injunction sought by 14 states that sued the Trump administration and the Postal Service, according to the Associated Press.
“The states have demonstrated the defendants are involved in a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service,” Bastian said.
The key changes the states were challenging included the service’s “leave mail behind” policy, in which mail trucks leave postal facilities on time even if there’s still more mail to load.
States are also urging the Postal Service to treat election mail as first-class mail. The 14 states that have sued are all led by Democratic attorneys general, including the key battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
DeJoy already suspended some of the changes to the Postal Service, including the removal of the well-known blue mailboxes in several cities and decommissioning mail-processing machines.
The postmaster general, a major donor to Trump and the Republican Party, testified about the changes in August in front of the House Oversight Committee.
