Colorado’s attor­ney gen­er­al announced Tues­day that the state is join­ing a fed­er­al law­suit to chal­lenge recent changes at the U.S. Postal Service.

“Col­oradans depend on the U.S. Postal Ser­vice to con­duct busi­ness, pay bills, order pre­scrip­tions, and to vote by mail,” said Attor­ney Gen­er­al Phil Weis­er, a Democrat.

“The sweep­ing changes that the post­mas­ter gen­er­al imple­ment­ed at the Postal Ser­vice are ille­gal and threat­en to under­mine our state’s inde­pen­dent author­i­ty to con­duct elec­tions,” he added.

Recent cuts have been blamed for slow­downs in mail deliv­ery across the coun­try and have led state offi­cials to warn of threats to Colorado’s mail vot­ing sys­tem. At a major mail dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter in Den­ver, five bar code sorters and a sequenc­ing sys­tem have been removed, Weis­er said.

A local USPS spokesman said he does not know if equip­ment has been removed from the Den­ver Pro­cess­ing and Deliv­ery Cen­ter, the fourth-largest USPS cen­ter in the coun­try. That spokesman, James Boxrud, said the cen­ter has “some of the newest automa­tion equip­ment” and “ample capac­i­ty to meet” all mail demands.

Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al Louis DeJoy said in an announce­ment soon after Weiser’s that he is sus­pend­ing all oper­a­tional changes until after the Nov. 3 election.

“The Postal Ser­vice is ready today to han­dle what­ev­er vol­ume of elec­tion mail it receives this fall,” DeJoy said. “Even with the chal­lenges of keep­ing our employ­ees and cus­tomers safe and healthy as they oper­ate amid a pan­dem­ic, we will deliv­er the nation’s elec­tion mail on time and with­in our well-estab­lished ser­vice standards.”

DeJoy said no post offices will short­en their hours, no pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties will be closed, no pro­cess­ing equip­ment will be removed, and all over­time hours will con­tin­ue to be approved as need­ed. It’s not clear what that means for equip­ment that was pre­vi­ous­ly removed from USPS buildings.

“I came to the Postal Ser­vice to make changes to secure the suc­cess of this orga­ni­za­tion and its long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” DeJoy said, adding that he still believes major changes are need­ed, but they will wait until after Nov. 3 “to avoid even the appear­ance of any impact on elec­tion mail.”