Postmaster General Louis DeJoy insisted Thursday the U.S. Postal Service is prepared to deliver mail-in ballots in a timely manner. 

DeJoy sought to reassure voters days after former President Donald Trump said the USPS cannot be trusted and months after state election directors expressed their own concerns that the mail system might not be able to handle the volume of ballots.

“There is a heightened sensitivity and scrutiny across the entire vote-by-mail ecosystem,” DeJoy said in a call with reporters. “We recognize that election officials are under an extreme amount of pressure and will remain so for at least the next two months. We also recognize that the American public will become increasingly alarmed if there is ongoing dialogue that continues to question the reliability of the Postal Service for the upcoming elections.

“Let me be clear: The Postal Service is ready to deliver the nation's mail-in ballots,” he continued. 

DeJoy noted that the USPS also faced questions before the 2020 presidential election — “in a highly sensationalized environment and during a global pandemic” — and proved to be successful. The agency delivered 99.89% of ballots from voters to election officials within seven days, the USPS said.

“We will be even better prepared for 2024 and will perform admirably again, as we always have,” DeJoy said. “Our failure rate is measured in fractions of a percentage point.”

The postmaster general said, beginning Oct. 21, the USPS will implement “extraordinary measures” to help ensure election mail reaches destinations in time. Those measures include some post offices establishing dedicated lines for ballot postmarks and drive-through ballot-drop operations, and making additional deliveries and collections, including to boards of elections in the final days before deadlines. 

Mail carriers will check every residential mailbox for outgoing ballots beginning Oct. 31, and ballots identified in the final days before Election Day for nonlocal destinations will be expedited using priority mail, DeJoy said.

But the postmaster general encouraged voters to mail their ballots at least seven days before the deadline. 

“That's the key to everyone's success,” DeJoy said.

In a post on his Truth Social platform Sunday, Trump cast doubt on the Postal Service being up to the challenge.

“The United States Postal Service has admitted that it is a poorly run mess that is experiencing mail loss and delays at a level never seen before,” he wrote. “With this being the FACT, how can we possibly be expected to allow or trust the U.S. Postal Service to run the 2024 Presidential Election? It is not possible for them to do so. HELP!”

In an interview with Real America’s Voice a day later, Trump floated the idea of suing the Postal Service, claiming the agency is “going to lose hundreds of thousands of ballots. Maybe purposely. Or maybe just through incompetence.”

Asked about Trump’s comments, DeJoy, a major donor to the former president’s 2020 campaign, said: “My response is like my response to everyone who says that we're not prepared for the election, is that they're wrong. And I don't know that I need to comment any more than that.”

Trump spent several months leading up to the 2020 presidential election making baseless claims about mail-in voting.

On Monday, Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said in a statement that “Trump is once again spouting lies about the Postal Service in an attempt to dissuade people from voting by mail. This is voter suppression, plain and simple.”

DeJoy said the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is committed to protecting the security and integrity of the election. 

“This includes rigorous security protocols, continuous monitoring and prompt response to any potential threats or incidents,” he said. “Any person that attempts to tamper with the nation's election mail will be met with swift consequences.”

The Postal Service is in the fourth year of a 10-year process to modernize and improve its operations and facilities. DeJoy stressed that “none of our activities will affect the election,” adding that the implementation of operational changes involving mail processing will be paused until after the elections.