The U.S. Postal Service said on Wednesday it found 815 mail-in ballots in Texas processing facilities and delivered them to county election offices.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the agency to conduct two sweeps of processing facilities in the state for returned mail-in ballots that were postmarked by Tuesday.
Under Texas law, mail-in ballots that were postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day will be counted if they are received by county election offices by 5 p.m. the following day. Sullivan required two sweeps by 3 p.m. Central time. Court documents detailed efforts to get the recovered ballots to election offices before the 5 p.m. deadline.
The court-ordered review of 14 processing plants across the state was part of an ongoing legal battle between a number of organizations, led by nonprofit Vote Forward, against the Postal Service and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Sullivan on Tuesday ordered facilities in 12 districts across the country, including Houston, to sweep for lost mail-in ballots. The agency failed to comply.
