President Joe Biden is also proposing $5 billion to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to expand delivery capacity in underserved areas “and support for vote-by-mail, including making ballots postage free and reducing the cost of other election-related mail.”
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, voting by mail jumped dramatically, with 46% of votes cast by mail in the November 2020 presidential election, up from 21% in the 2016 election, the USPS Inspector General said.
In the 2020 election, the Postal Service delivered more than 135 million ballots.
In August 2020, then President Donald Trump sparked a firestorm when he said without additional funding from Congress “they can’t have universal mail-in voting, they just can’t have it.”
That prompted U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to say Trump’s comments about election mail were “incorrect” and said USPS had adequate funding to handle mailed ballots.