Significant percentages of mail-in ballots in battleground states were not delivered to election offices Nov. 3, according to US Postal Service data filed in federal court on Wednesday.
In Philadelphia, 33.7 percent of mail-in ballots were not delivered to election offices on Election Day, the data shows.
In Atlanta, the same goes for 17.9 percent of mail-in ballots, and in Detroit for 21.1 percent, the filing states.
For Greensboro, NC, 27.1 percent were not delivered, and in Lakeland, Wis., the figure is 23.2 percent, according to the filing.
The data also shows that 6.7 percent of mail-in ballots were received by Nov. 3 but not processed.
The Postal Service was court-ordered to provide the information by US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, in Washington, DC, who is hearing lawsuits over delays in the processing of mail-in ballots.
Sullivan is the same judge who presided over the controversial criminal case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn for allegedly lying to FBI agents. Sullivan refused to drop the case despite the Justice Department’s request to do so. An appeals court eventually threw out the charges against Flynn.
In a letter accompanying the statistics, Justice Department lawyers who are representing the Postal Service cautioned that “the data possesses little to no analytical value and should not be considered a reliable indicator of performance.”
The attorneys argued that the information is incomplete and breaking it down by day distorts actual service performance due to significant daily variations.
They added that these percentages only reflect mail-in ballots that bear specific tracking codes, which are a subset of total election mail.
The data release comes a day after the Postal Service blew a deadline set by Sullivan requiring inspectors from the agency to scour postal facilities for mail-in ballots in key swing states.
