Mark Meadows denied reports that hundreds of mail-sorting machines are being taken offline as part of a new initiative.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said in an interview on Sunday that US Postal Service mail-sorting machines will not be taken offline between now and Election Day — a statement at odds with reports that the Postal Service is decommissioning 10 percent of its machines this year under a new policy.
The way Meadows made the claim — by denying they were being removed in the first place, and making questionable claims in response to an on-air fact-check by CNN’s Jake Tapper — left it unclear if he was actually pledging a reversal of the ongoing decommissioning of machines.
Some postal workers say the decommissioning of the machines — some of which would be sorting mail-in ballots — could hamstring the Postal Service’s ability to handle an unprecedented surge of absentee ballots in November’s election and could contribute to the possibility of millions of voters being disenfranchised by an overwhelmed postal system.