New York state and New York City, Hawaii, New Jersey and San Francisco-area governments argued that the slow-down impacted their ability to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus, by impeding people from having a reliable alternative to in-person voting.In mid-2020, the USPS cut back on the number of mail sorting machines it used, and also hindered the ability of workers to make extra postal trips that would result in them being paid for overtime.Sullivan said the USPS couldn’t bar postal workers from making late or extra delivery trips without permission from the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent federal agency.“Although the simultaneous implementation of multiple policy changes in June and July 2020 contributed to the decline in mail service and the overall confusion by postal workers, the record evidence demonstrates that changes to and impacts on the USPS transportation schedule regarding late and extra trips were the primary factor in affecting service on a nationwide or substantially nationwide basis,” Sullivan wrote in a 65-page opinion Thursday.“Though the implementation of the Postal Policy Changes contributed to the delay in mail deliveries nationwide, which in turn risked a delay in the delivery of mail-in ballots during an election season, USPS’s actions do not amount to voting regulations that override the States’ existing regulations,” Sullivan wrote."