WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Ser­vice is warn­ing states coast to coast that it can­not guar­an­tee all bal­lots cast by mail for the Novem­ber elec­tion will arrive in time to be count­ed, even if mailed by state dead­lines, rais­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that mil­lions of vot­ers could be disenfranchised.

Vot­ers and law­mak­ers in sev­er­al states are also com­plain­ing that some curb­side mail col­lec­tion box­es are being removed.

Even as Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump rails against widescale vot­ing by mail, the post office is brac­ing for an unprece­dent­ed num­ber of mail-in bal­lots as a result of the coro­n­avirus pandemic.

The warn­ing let­ters sent to states raise the pos­si­bil­i­ty that many Amer­i­cans eli­gi­ble for mail-in bal­lots this fall will not have them count­ed. But that is not the intent, Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al Louis DeJoy said in his own let­ter to Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gres­sion­al leaders.

The post office is mere­ly “ask­ing elect­ed offi­cials and vot­ers to real­is­ti­cal­ly con­sid­er how the mail works, and be mind­ful of our deliv­ery stan­dards, in order to pro­vide vot­ers ample time to cast bal­lots through the mail,” wrote DeJoy, a promi­nent Trump polit­i­cal donor who was recent­ly appointed.

The back-and-forth comes amid a vig­or­ous cam­paign by Trump to sow doubts about mail-in vot­ing as he faces a dif­fi­cult fight for reelec­tion against Demo­c­rat Joe Biden.

Though Trump casts his own bal­lots by mail, he’s repeat­ed­ly crit­i­cized efforts to allow more peo­ple to do so, which he argues with­out evi­dence will lead to increased vot­er fraud that could cost him the elec­tion. Mean­while, mem­bers of Con­gress from both par­ties have voiced con­cerns that curb­side mail box­es, which is how many will cast their bal­lots, have abrupt­ly been removed in some states.

At the same time that the need for time­ly deliv­ery of the mail is peak­ing, ser­vice has been cur­tailed amid cost-cut­ting and effi­cien­cy mea­sures ordered by the DeJoy, the new post­mas­ter gen­er­al, who is a for­mer sup­ply-chain CEO . He has imple­ment­ed mea­sures to elim­i­nate over­time pay and hold mail over if dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ters are run­ning late.

The Post Office released let­ters it sent to all 50 states and the Dis­trict Colum­bia on its web­site. While some states were giv­en a less strin­gent warn­ing, the major­i­ty were told the sit­u­a­tion was more dire.

The laws, the let­ter said, cre­ate a “risk that bal­lots request­ed near the dead­line under state law will not be returned by mail in time to be counted.”

The mass mail­ing of the warn­ing let­ters was first report­ed by The Wash­ing­ton Post.

Many state offi­cials crit­i­cized the move.

“This is a deeply trou­bling devel­op­ment in what is becom­ing a clear pat­tern of attempt­ed vot­er sup­pres­sion by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion,” Demo­c­ra­t­ic Vir­ginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a state­ment. “I am com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure all Vir­gini­ans have access to the bal­lot box, and will con­tin­ue to work with state and fed­er­al law­mak­ers to ensure safe, secure and acces­si­ble elec­tions this fall.”

Kim Wyman, the Repub­li­can sec­re­tary of state in Wash­ing­ton state, where all vot­ing is by mail, said send­ing fall bal­lot mate­r­i­al to mil­lions of vot­ers there is a “rou­tine oper­a­tion of the U.S. Postal Service.”

“Politi­ciz­ing these admin­is­tra­tive process­es is dan­ger­ous and under­mines pub­lic con­fi­dence in our elec­tions,” she said in a state­ment. “This vol­ume of work is by no means unusu­al, and is an oper­a­tion I am con­fi­dent the U.S. Postal Ser­vice is suf­fi­cient­ly pre­pared to fulfill.”

Mean­while, the removal of Postal Ser­vice col­lec­tion mail box­es trig­gered con­cerns and anger in Ore­gon and Montana.

In Mon­tana, postal offi­cials said the removals were part of a pro­gram to elim­i­nate under­used drop box­es. But after the out­cry, which includ­ed upset mem­bers of Con­gress, the offi­cials said they were sus­pend­ing the pro­gram in Mon­tana. It was unclear if the pro­gram was also sus­pend­ed in oth­er states.

At least 25 mail box­es were removed in mid-July in Mon­tana with anoth­er 30 sched­uled to be tak­en away soon, said Julie Quil­liam, pres­i­dent of the Mon­tana Let­ter Car­ri­ers Asso­ci­a­tion. She reject­ed the claim that the box­es were removed because of low usage.

“Some of the box­es sched­uled to be removed from down­town Billings are near­ly over­flow­ing dai­ly,” Quil­liam wrote in a Face­book message.

All three mem­bers of Montana’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion — two of whom are Repub­li­can — raised con­cerns about the removal of mail box­es in let­ters sent to Post­mas­ter DeJoy.

“These actions set my hair on fire and they have real life impli­ca­tions for folks in rur­al Amer­i­ca and their abil­i­ty to access crit­i­cal postal ser­vices like pay­ing their bills and vot­ing in upcom­ing elec­tions,” said Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat.

Repub­li­can Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gian­forte, also a Repub­li­can, raised sim­i­lar con­cerns in let­ters to DeJoy about the effect the removal of the mail box­es might have on deliv­ery times. All three asked for infor­ma­tion on how the agency decid­ed which box­es to remove and whether any more removals were planned.

“Dur­ing the cur­rent pub­lic health cri­sis it is more impor­tant than ever the USPS con­tin­ue to pro­vide prompt, depend­able deliv­ery ser­vice,” said Gianforte.

Postal Ser­vice spokesper­son Ernie Swan­son said the Ore­gon removals were due to declin­ing mail vol­ume and that dupli­cate mail box­es were tak­en from places that had more than one. The Postal Ser­vice said four mail box­es were removed in Port­land this week.

“First-class mail vol­ume has declined sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the U.S., espe­cial­ly since the pan­dem­ic,” Swan­son said. “That trans­lates to less mail in col­lec­tion boxes.”

Sep­a­rate­ly, the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Let­ter Car­ri­ers, which rep­re­sents 300,000 cur­rent and retired work­ers, endorsed Biden.

The union said Trump has been hos­tile to the post office and has under­mined it and its work­ers while Biden “is – was – and will con­tin­ue to be – a fierce ally and defend­er of the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice,” said union pres­i­dent Fredric Rolando.

Han­son report­ed from Hele­na, Mon­tana. Asso­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers across the U.S. con­tributed to this report.