As Courts Back Broad Mail-In Voting, DeJoy Apologizes for Missteps

Mr. DeJoy claimed he had at times “disagreed with the president publicly on that particular issue,” but he did not offer specifics on his disagreements, according to people who participated in the video conference, which was private and included dozens of secretaries of state from across the country.

After the video conference, Ms. Griswold, a Democrat, said she found it “very noteworthy that he says he’s publicly in disagreement with the president” but suggested she was not fully convinced. “I also think actions speak louder than words,” she said in an interview.

The frayed relationship between the Postal Service and election administrators has increased concerns about election-time chaos, including the potential disqualification of as many as one million ballots for missed deadlines, as a number of states have introduced new rules to drastically expand the use of mail-in voting and ballot-collection drop boxes.

Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, Democrat of Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state, had expressed concerns about warnings from the post office regarding delivery times. Her department sought relief in a court filing.

The ruling in Pennsylvania, which came in response to a lawsuit brought by the state Democratic Party, effectively expanded mail-in voting by ordering that ballots postmarked by Election Day be counted if they were received by 5 p.m. on the Friday after the election. The court added additional relief for ballots “received within this period that lack a postmark or other proof of mailing, or for which the postmark or other proof of mailing is illegible” and said they would “be presumed to have been mailed by Election Day, unless a preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that it was mailed after Election Day.”

The court also allowed for the expanded use of drop boxes for mail ballots, an alternative for voters who have been hesitant to trust the Postal Service. Mr. Trump’s campaign had sought to block this in Pennsylvania, filing a lawsuit in federal court claiming that it would lead to widespread fraud. A federal judge put that lawsuit on hold to allow related cases to work their way through the state courts.

The decision came as a federal judge in Yakima, Wash., issued a nationwide injunction to force the Postal Service to reverse recent operational changes. A coalition of 14 states sued the Postal Service in August, charging that the changes were carried out unlawfully. Mr. DeJoy reversed several contentious policies on the day the states filed their lawsuit.