There is a conspiracy theory among some Democrats that the Trump-allied Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, has deliberately worked to negatively impact elections for Democrats by slowing the delivery of absentee and mail-in ballots until after elections are held and they are too late to be counted.

That theory is a central element of a left-leaning former federal prosecutor's analysis of President Joe Biden's recent appointments to the U.S. Postal Service's Board of Governors, according to Newsweek.

The analysis holds that Biden has now appointed a sufficient number of board members to check Dejoy's purportedly pro-Trump agenda, hold him accountable for any alleged misdeeds, and even vote to remove him from his position -- all to help protect the integrity of mail-in ballots ahead of November's elections.

Biden's efforts to stack the USPS board with like-minded members

Former federal prosecutor and avowed Trump-hater Joyce Vance, in her Civil Discourse blog, said this week that there was "good news" in the form of President Biden's two most recent nominations to the USPS Board of Governors.

Those picks, announced last week by the White House, included former Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) and Republican businessman William Zollers, who previously served as a board governor until his term expired at the end of 2023 and left a vacancy on the board.

That followed a report in March that Biden had also nominated former Labor Sec. Marty Walsh to also fill a vacancy on the USPS board, though it was noted by Vance that all three are still waiting to be confirmed by a majority of the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Vance observed that the board consists of 11 members, including nine presidential appointees plus the Postmaster General and their deputy, that the governors serve seven-year terms, and that rules prohibit no more than five members from being of the same political party to prevent the board from becoming a lopsided partisan institution.

Pro-Biden majority of board could vote to remove DeJoy

"The good news is that this is an essential stop towards replacing Louis DeJoy, Trump’s Postmaster General, who is still in place," Vance wrote. "DeJoy is a Trump loyalist and donor who was appointed with no qualifications to run the Post Office effectively. And he hasn’t."

"DeJoy put measures in place that he claimed were designed to cut costs but that, in practice, seriously impaired mail delivery," she continued. "In one notorious move, he dismantled sorting machines. This resulted in massive backlogs and serious delivery delays. It just so happened that led to major slowdowns in swing states just ahead of the 2020 election that resulted in tens of thousands of ballots arriving too late to be counted."

Vance lamented how "frustrating" it was that President Biden had to contend with the USPS board's anti-partisanship rule and the length of time it has taken for him to nominate a sufficient number of governors to act as a check against, if not vote to remove DeJoy from his role, as only the board has the authority to do.

Noting how Biden had to balance the numbers of Democrats and Republicans he has nominated during his tenure in office, she wrote, "So you can see what a delicate dance it takes to get to the point where replacing DeJoy is a realistic proposition. Although Presidents must appoint under the set political restrictions, the individuals they appoint are up to them, and one of the Trump appointees, who was technically a Democrat, supported DeJoy while Trump was in office."

USPS spokesperson shuts down Vance's theory

Vance went on to further criticize DeJoy for the supposedly poor job he has done running the USPS and reiterated her desire to see him removed from power because of his reported affinity for former President Trump and his agenda.

"Improving the Postal Service would be an immediate benefit to every American. Doing it ahead of the election and ensuring DeJoy can’t play games again is essential," she insisted. "Once confirmed, these most recent appointments should make it possible to replace DeJoy. It can’t happen soon enough. Beginning this week (although it will likely take a bit longer) we will watch for confirmation of these new Governors and see how quickly they take action."

Of course, Vance's fringe theory about DeJoy deliberately slowing the delivery of election-related mail and ballots was thoroughly and forcefully denied by a USPS spokesperson, according to Newsweek, and the cited statistics on election-related mail deliveries sharply undermines the entire premise of Vance's piece about Biden's nominations to the board.