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State and local officials warn delays in election-related mail could disenfranchise voters
Washington — State and local elections officials from nearly half of the states warned the U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday that ongoing issues with election mail delivery could risk disenfranchising voters and urged the service to act quickly to address deficiencies ahead of the presidential election.
In the letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the leaders of various groups representing election administrators raised concerns with the Postal Service’s performance in the run-up to Election Day on Nov. 5. The letter said elections officials have raised questions over the past year about the service’s ability to deliver election mail on time and accurately.
The officials said while there has been “repeated engagement” with the Postal Service, they have not seen “improvement or concerted efforts” to remedy their concerns. Millions of voters are expected to cast their ballots by mail in the weeks before Election Day.
“State and local election officials need a committed partner in USPS,” the officials wrote. “We implore you to take immediate and tangible corrective action to address the ongoing performance issues with USPS election mail service. Failure to do so will risk limiting voter participation and trust in the election process.”
They said that despite efforts over the past few years to emphasize the importance of voters requesting and returning mail-in ballots early, local officials in nearly every state are receiving ballots postmarked on time after Election Day, the deadline in many states for them to be received. The election officials said in multiple states, “dozens to hundreds of ballots” were received at least 10 days after they were postmarked.
“There is no amount of proactive communication election officials can do to account for USPS’s inability to meet their own service delivery timelines,” they wrote.
The election officials also told DeJoy that mail sent to voters is being marked as undeliverable at above-normal rates, even when a voter has not moved. The issue has impacted a range of election mail, they said, including mailers with election information, voter address confirmation cards and ballots. The officials said in other instances, ballots sent to election offices are returned to the voter as undeliverable.
Election mail sent back to an election office could trigger a process under federal law that may lead to a voter being deemed inactive and require them to take additional steps to verify their address to vote in the upcoming election, the state and local officials said. The increase in undeliverable mail could lead to the potential disenfranchisement of voters who fail to receive ballots or lead to their voter registration records being canceled, they said.
In addition to concerns about the delivery of election mail, the officials said USPS staff is not informed about the service’s policies, leading to “inconsistent guidance” being given to election officials or ballots being deliberately held, delayed or improperly processed.
The frequency of the training issues, they said, “make it clear these are not one-off mistakes or a problem with specific facilities. Instead, it demonstrates a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees.”
The letter was sent by the National Association of State Election Directors, the National Association of Secretaries of State and presidents of local election associations on behalf of administrators nationwide.
Appointed during the Trump administration, DeJoy came under scrutiny ahead of the 2020 election over mail-delivery delays. The Census Bureau reported in April 2021 that 69% of voters cast their ballots either by mail or before Election Day, the highest rate of nontraditional voting since 1996.
While voting in 2020 took place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Republicans and Democrats have continued to urge supporters to cast their ballots early.
Even former President Donald Trump, who has claimed mail-in ballots lead to election fraud, said last month that absentee and early voting are “good options.”
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Explosion at Louisville plant leaves 11 employees injured
At least 11 employees were taken to hospitals and residents were urged to shelter in place on Tuesday after an explosion at a Louisville, Kentucky, business.
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services reported on social media a “hazardous materials incident” at 1901 Payne St., in Louisville. The address belongs to a facility operated by Givaudan Sense Colour, a manufacturer of food colorings for soft drinks and other products, according to officials and online records.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said emergency teams responded to the blast around 3 p.m. News outlets reported that neighbors heard what sounded like an explosion coming from the business. Overhead news video footage showed an industrial building with a large hole in its roof.
“The cause at this point of the explosion is unknown,” Greenberg said in a news conference. No one died in the explosion, he added.
Greenberg said officials spoke to employees inside the plant. “They have initially conveyed that everything was normal activity when the explosion occurred,” he said.
The Louisville Fire Department said in a post on the social platform X that multiple agencies were responding to a “large-scale incident.”
The Louisville Metro Emergency Services first urged people within a mile of the business to shelter in place, but that order was lifted in the afternoon. An evacuation order for the two surrounding blocks around the site of the explosion was still in place Tuesday afternoon.
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Briefing held on classified documents leaker Jack Teixeira’s sentencing
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Aga Khan emerald, world’s most expensive green stone, fetches record $9 million at auction
A rare square 37-carat emerald owned by the Aga Khan fetched nearly $9 million at auction in Geneva on Tuesday, making it the world’s most expensive green stone.
Sold by Christie’s, the Cartier diamond and emerald brooch, which can also be worn as a pendant, dethrones a piece of jewelry made by the fashion house Bulgari, which Richard Burton gave as a wedding gift to fellow actor Elizabeth Taylor, as the most precious emerald.
In 1960, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan commissioned Cartier to set the emerald in a brooch with 20 marquise-cut diamonds for British socialite Nina Dyer, to whom he was briefly married.
Dyer then auctioned off the emerald to raise money for animals in 1969.
By chance that was Christie’s very first such sale in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva, with the emerald finding its way back to the 110th edition this year.
It was bought by jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels before passing a few years later into the hands of Harry Winston, nicknamed the “King of Diamonds.”
“Emeralds are hot right now, and this one ticks all the boxes,” said Christie’s EMEA Head of Jewellery Max Fawcett. “…We might see an emerald of this quality come up for sale once every five or six years.”
Also set with diamonds, the previous record-holder fetched $6.5 million at an auction of part of Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor’s renowned jewelry collection in New York.