Judge orders US Postal Service to take ‘extraordinary measures’ to deliver ballots on time

Sign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletter

A federal judge ordered the US Postal Service on Sunday to take “extraordinary measures” to ensure mail ballots arrive on time.

USPS is seeing a severe dip in on-time delivery rates leading up to the 3 November presidential election, according to the data from the agency. Some of the largest mail delays are in battleground states where late ballots could make the difference in which candidate wins the state – and possibly the election.

The judge’s ruling involves USPS using its express mail service to deliver ballots within one to two days, which will be crucial in states that require that ballots be received by election day.

On-time rates during the week of 17 October – when about 20 million Americans were sending in their mail-in ballots – fell to the lowest they had been all year. Only 81% of first-class mail was delivered on time.

Nationwide on-time rates for first-class USPS mail have plummeted in recent weeks.

The mail delays have been especially notable in some key swing states. In the central Pennsylvania mailing district, where Philadelphia is located, on-time rates fell to 66% after being at about 90% just months earlier.

In 2016, Democrats won Philadelphia by nearly 750,000 votes, but Trump made up the deficit with big wins in the more rural counties to win Pennsylvania by just 44,000 votes.

Line chart showing in the Philadelphia mailing district, on-time rates plummeted.

In the Detroit mailing district, on-time rates for first-class mail fell to 63%. It was above 90% at the beginning of the year. Detroit and the surrounding suburbs are where Democrats accrued most of their margin in 2016, when Trump won the state by less than 11,000 votes.

Line chart showing in Detroit on-time rates plummeted.

In both states, a record number of people have already voted by mail. But there are still hundreds of thousands of ballots that were requested but have yet to be returned.

A mail delay could make the difference between whether a ballot is counted. For example, in Pennsylvania mail ballots must arrive by 6 November at 5pm.

The postal service has come under scrutiny after Donald Trump’s ally Louis DeJoy was appointed postmaster general in May. DeJoy implemented cost-cutting changes to make the postal service more efficient, but that caused on-time rates to plummet.

After complaints that USPS was purposefully slowing down mail to help Trump’s re-election, Dejoy said he would suspend the changes until after the election. Soon thereafter, on-time rates rebounded – but they are now dropping again.