Lynchburg Reporter

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has begun postmarking mail-in and absentee ballots that are pre-paid in order to ensure that all ballots are counted, according to an Oct. 26 letter signed by a government relations manager.

“The Postal Service does not postmark every piece of mail as part of our normal procedures, since the primary purpose of cancellation is to ensure that postage cannot be reused,” wrote Sheila T. Meyers, manager of Government Liaison with the USPS, in a letter addressed to U.S. Reps. Gary J. Palmer (R-AL), James Comer (R-KY) and Jody Hice (R-GA).

“As a result, despite our best efforts, we acknowledge that circumstances can arise that prevent ballots from receiving a legible postmark. In response to concerns raised in reports, the Postal Service convened a postmarking team to identify and address the root causes of missing postmarks. Through the team’s work, we have strengthened our ballot postmarking processes."

The postmarking of ballots is just one election issue that has concerned Phillip Kline, an associate professor of law at the Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg. 

“The problem potentially is that a postage prepaid ballot might not have a postmark,” Kline told the Lynchburg Reporter. “So, although someone might mail in their ballot by Election Day, it may not have a postmark and so it doesn't get counted. We wanted to make sure that the postmark was affixed to every ballot. It's not a problem any longer and the postal service is doing that.”

As the director of the Amistad Project at the Thomas More Society, which advocates for civil liberties, Kline has initiated a series of lawsuits in three categories of law. They include:

Privatization of local election offices. For example, the City of Philadelphia received a $10 million grant from the non-profit Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), which is funded by Facebook’s Founder Mark Zuckerberg, to increase the number of in-person polling places from 190 to 800, according to a statement online.

Suspension of state laws relating to election procedures. Kline spearheaded a lawsuit against the state of Michigan for allowing drop boxes to replace the act of actually mailing in ballots. 

“States have basic protections to ensure ballots are valid, and Michigan has been suspending many of those protections. There is video out there showing people dropping off multiple ballots into a dropbox,” he said.

Abuse of emergency police powers infringing upon First Amendment freedoms. Kline says this is indirectly election-related. 

“Certain governors are claiming that these emergency police powers allow them to suspend state laws related to elections and so we've challenged the perpetual use of emergency police powers,” he said. 

“They're not supposed to be used for this length of time. They're only supposed to be available when the legislature can't function. It’s so extraordinary what these governors are doing."