Jones v. U.S. Postal Serv.

• Decision Date: 21 September 2020
• Docket Number: 20 Civ. 6516 (VM)
• Citation: 488 F.Supp.3d 103
• Parties: Mondaire JONES, et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

488 F.Supp.3d 103

Mondaire JONES, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, et al., Defendants.

20 Civ. 6516 (VM)

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

Signed September 21, 2020

Ali Najmi, Law Office of Ali Najmi, Kew Gardens, NY, Jonathan Wallace, Solo Practitioner, Astoria, NY, Remy Green, Cohen & Green, Ridgewood, NY, for Plaintiffs.

Rebecca Sol Tinio, Steven John Kochevar, United States Attorney's Office SDNY, New York, NY, for Defendants.

DECISION AND ORDER

VICTOR MARRERO, United States District Judge.

Plaintiffs Mondaire Jones, Alessandra Biaggi, Chris Burdick, Stephanie Keegan, Seth Rosen, Shannon Spencer, Kathy Rothschild, Diana M. Woody, Perry Sainati, Robert Golub, Mary Winton Green, Marsie Wallach, Matthew Wallach, Mac Wallach, Carol Sussman, and Rebecca Rieckhoff ("Plaintiffs") filed this action against defendants United States Postal Service ("USPS" or "Postal Service"); Louis DeJoy, as Postmaster General ("DeJoy"), and Donald J. Trump, as President of the United States ("President," and together with the Postal Service and DeJoy, "Defendants" or the "Government"). (See "Amended Complaint," Dkt. No. 36.) Plaintiffs seek declaratory relief and a preliminary injunction mandating that the Postal Service take certain actions to ensure the timely delivery of their absentee ballots in the upcoming national elections being held November 3, 2020. (See "Motion," Dkt. No. 19-1; "Notice of Motion," Dkt. No. 19.) The Court held a hearing on September 16, 2020, and heard witness testimony. For the reasons that follow, the Court GRANTS in part the Motion.

Introduction

Nothing is more essential to a true democracy than the right to vote. Where that right is constitutionally guaranteed and exercised by citizens through free and fair elections protected by government authority, democratic rule thrives. Conversely, impairing the franchise, or imposing undue burdens on the ability of voters to cast ballots for their elected leaders, necessarily threatens democracy and erodes the underpinnings of a republican form of government. For that reason, this country's founding constitutional principles have designed and enshrined by law the means to ensure free and fair balloting at every level of representative government. To that end, our system has made affirmative provisions not only to ensure maximum ease for citizens to gain access to the ballot box, but also to remove obstacles to voting and repulse attempts, whether by coercion, dilution, discrimination, or other like deleterious means, to interfere with voting rights.

One of the evident ways by which our society fosters and guarantees voting rights is by absentee balloting, accommodating the exceptional needs of citizens unable to vote in person for various legitimate reasons -- illness, travel, education or employment out of the jurisdiction, or military or diplomatic service. Protecting the franchise of such citizens, and enforcing effective rules to do so, should be no less an essential obligation of the government than is securing voting in person. In fact, the law makes no such distinction. Instead, all voters, regardless of whether they submit their ballots in person or by mail, have a right to have their votes counted and their voices heard. The case before the Court presents these principles.

The context in which this litigation arises is essential to an analysis and resolution of the controversy. The entire world is now in the grip of a catastrophic pandemic caused by the coronavirus, a phenomenon that has inflicted a heavier toll of illness and death on the United States than on any other nation. By recent government count, COVID-19 has already infected over 6.7 million Americans and claimed over 198,000 lives.¹ In its wake, and pertinent to the action before the Court, the disease has engendered widespread fear that conducting elections requiring voters to appear at the polls to cast their ballots in person, there having to occupy enclosed spaces through which thousands of people would pass throughout the day and handle the same voting equipment, would produce conditions conducive to the spread of the illness. To address these concerns, at least 22 states and the District of Columbia have changed their laws to encourage voters to cast their ballots by mail; 34 states and the District of Columbia already permitted anyone to vote by mail, and only five states require an excuse (beyond concerns related to COVID-19).² There is no dispute that this development will bring about a predictable effect at issue here: a significant surge in the volume of election mail the USPS is being called upon to handle.

These circumstances present unique challenges and opportunities for public officials, not only those in charge of the Postal Service but also leaders of the rest of the government, federal and state. The crisis demands, as Plaintiffs here urge, extraordinary measures and firm commitment to ensure that all citizens wishing to exercise their right to vote are able to do so without needing to confront an untenable choice: risk contracting a potentially fatal illness by voting in person, or foregoing their right to vote in a presidential election. That prospect likely will come to pass if a mail-in balloting option is available but gives no reliable assurance that citizens could cast their ballots and that their votes would be delivered to election authorities in time to be counted.

Against this backdrop, this case raises some central questions. Some are philosophical and implicate the Postal Service's core mission. The Postal Service has developed a proud reputation for its paramount resolve, memorialized in the famous inscription carved on the pediment of the General Post Office Building in New York City, to deliver the mail despite any obstacles.³ Postal operations have also been guided by the ethic and spirit of the language of the USPS's charter mandate. That statute evinces a legislative design that the entity is not just another government agency rendering a necessary public service, but one that performs a vital national purpose: to "bind the Nation together." The nation's extraordinary efforts to deliver election mail from members of the armed forces during the Civil War and World War II provide compelling examples of that ingrained commitment.

Beyond these issues implicating the USPS's core values, this case presents various operational and financial concerns. How has the Postal Service responded to these developments? Specifically, are the agency's organization, operations, and finances adequate to meet the unprecedented difficulties posed by the combined impact on mail service of the pandemic and the greater volume of absentee or mail-in ballots that voters will cast in a few weeks?

To these questions Plaintiffs here answer "No." They charge that in fact the Postal Service has retreated from the dedication to its institutional ethic and historical culture of delivering the mail as an overarching national function. As evidence, Plaintiffs point to the vision of a "transformative initiative" recently instituted by DeJoy upon his assumption of his office -- measures that included, for example, reduction of overtime pay, elimination of mail sorting machines on a larger scale than previously done since 2016, directing mail trucks to leave as scheduled, even if it would entail leaving mail behind for delivery another day. According to Plaintiffs, such policy and operational changes have redefined and rechanneled the USPS's mission to follow the business model of a private enterprise. Under this approach, according to Plaintiffs, the Postal Service's commitment to delivering all of the mail may be sacrificed in the name of efficiency. As evidence, Plaintiffs point out that, correlating with DeJoy's postal reforms, within weeks of the adoption of the new approach the service standards for First-Class Mail declined and have not yet fully recovered to reach what they were before the initiatives.

Adding complication to the situation, Plaintiffs call attention to a statement made by President Trump's deputy campaign manager Justin Clark, quoted as having said that "[t]he President views vote by mail as a threat to his election." And the President himself made a statement that was interpreted as urging voters who mail in ballots to also vote in person, in order to test the system.⁴

Accordingly, in the midst of the exceptional demands presented by a national health crisis, and confronted simultaneously with a presidential election that will generate an unprecedented surge of mail ballots, rather than focusing efforts and resources on guaranteeing that citizens’ apprehensions about the coronavirus crisis would not impede exercise of their right to vote, the Postal Service, the Postmaster General, and the President have made public statements and taken steps manifesting a somewhat ambiguous course. They have not provided trusted assurance and comfort that citizens will be able to cast ballots with full confidence that their votes would be timely collected and counted. Rather, as detailed below, their actions have given rise to management and operational confusion, to directives that tend to generate uncertainty as to who is in charge of policies that ultimately could affect the reliability of absentee ballots, thus potentially discouraging voting by mail. Conflicting, vague, and ambivalent managerial signals could also sow substantial doubt about whether the USPS is up to the task, whether it possesses the institutional will power and commitment to its historical mission, and so to handle the exceptional burden associated with a profoundly critical task in our democratic system, that of collecting and delivering election mail a few weeks from now.

The Court is persuaded that the circumstances Plaintiffs portray in their complaint, sufficiently supported by evidence on the record of this proceeding, warrant relief. The right to vote is too vital a value in our...