VIDEO: Watch Bennet’s Speech HERE
Washington, D.C. – Today on the Senate floor, Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet praised President Joe Biden’s nominee to the Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service Amber McReynolds. McReynolds is one of the most respected election officials in Colorado and across the country. She spent 13 years serving in Denver’s elections division – including for seven years as the city’s Director of Elections.
McReynolds oversaw Denver’s transition to an entirely vote-by-mail system – where every active voter can receive and return their ballot by mail, or by taking it to a dropbox in their community — as well as pioneered popular reforms, including a ballot tracking system and a risk-limiting audit. Under her leadership, Denver became a national model for making it easy for people to vote while increasing election security.
“As we’ve learned in my state, the case for voting by mail is overwhelming: It’s more convenient. It’s more accessible. It costs a lot less to administer. And during a pandemic, it’s a lot safer than voting in person,” said Bennet. “But it only works if people have confidence that the Post Office can deliver their ballots in a way that’s reliable, secure, and completely free of politics. And that’s why I can’t think of anyone better to serve on the Board of Governors than Amber McReynolds, who’s one of the most respected election officials not just in Colorado but all across the country.”
Bennet continued, “In my state, we’re proud of the election model that we’ve built in a collaborative, nonpartisan way. And Ms. McReynolds deserves a lot of credit for that. She’s the right kind of leader who isn’t satisfied with the status quo. She’s constantly asking how to make things better. How to make things more efficient. How to make complex systems simpler and more accessible and useful to people. That’s exactly the kind of experience we need at the Postal Service, especially at a time when more Americans are voting by mail than ever before.”
Bennet’s full remarks as delivered are available below.
Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to come to the floor tonight to spend just a few minutes to speak about Amber McReynolds, President Biden’s nominee to serve on the Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service.
Everyone in America relies on the Postal Service, but hardly anyone knows about the Board of Governors or how much it matters to all of us.
The Board sets the policies for the Postal Service. It directs its budget and reviews its practices. It also selects the Postmaster General.
But the Board’s most important job is to represent the public interest – not special interests – and to help manage the Postal Service in a way that’s competent, professional, and completely nonpartisan.
That matters for a lot of reasons, but one of the most important is the critical and growing role that the Post Office plays in our democracy.
Over the past year, states all across the country followed our example in Colorado by giving people the freedom to vote by mail.
As we’ve learned in my state, the case for voting by mail is overwhelming: It’s more convenient. It’s more accessible. It costs a lot less to administer. And during a pandemic, it’s a lot safer than voting in person.
But it only works if people have confidence that the Post Office can deliver their ballots in a way that’s reliable, secure, and completely free of politics.
And that’s why I can’t think of anyone better to serve on the Board of Governors than Amber McReynolds, who’s one of the most respected election officials not just in Colorado but all across the country.
Ms. McReynolds spent 13 years serving in Denver’s elections division – including for seven years as the city’s Director of Elections.
Under her leadership, Denver became a national model for making it easy for people to vote while increasing election security.
She oversaw Denver’s transition to a fully vote-by-mail system – where every active voter can receive and return their ballot by mail, or by taking it to a dropbox in their community.
Last November, we saw images on television of people lining up in this country for hours and hours on Election Day to cast their ballots.
In Colorado, I left my ballot at a secure dropbox. There is no line. There is no wait. The whole process took 30 seconds, if that.
It’s like that all across Colorado — all across my state, because we’ve made it incredibly easy and secure for Coloradans to cast their ballots.
Ms. McReynolds had a lot to do with that, by introducing one popular reform after another.
She helped to make Denver the first city in America to adopt a ballot tracking system, which notifies voters when their ballot is mailed, when it’s delivered, and counted so they can have transparency about the process every step of the way. I never have to wonder whether my ballot is in the mail or not. Or whether I’ve sent it back or not, because I get an email from the clerk telling me. You even get an email that tells you when your ballot has been counted.
She had a lot to do with that. And after Denver put that system in place, cities across the country followed our example.
Ms. McReynolds also led efforts to launch a new voting system that used touchscreen tablets and other technologies from Dominion – a fantastic Colorado company – that was much easier for voters to use and was just one-tenth the cost of typical voting machines.
Under her leadership, Denver was also one of the earliest counties in Colorado to pioneer something called a risk-limiting audit, where election officials match a random sample of ballots against the official results to catch any discrepancies.
It was a cost-effective way to reinforce the public’s trust in local elections, and it set the stage for Colorado to become the first state in America to introduce risk-limiting audits statewide.
The same thing happened with vote-by-mail. Ms. McReynolds’ success in Denver helped pave the way for Colorado’s transition to a fully vote-by-mail system in 2013 — 2013! That was eight years ago, that is two presidential elections ago that we went to vote-by-mail.
And just like in Denver, when we did it in the state, none of those changes were partisan. We actually transitioned to vote by mail under a Republican Secretary of State.
In fact, there was a view at the time that moving to vote-by-mail would help Republicans, because it made it a lot easier for Coloradans in rural areas to vote.
In reality, it’s made it easier for everybody to vote – Democrats, Republicans, and Unaffiliated voters. Urban voters, suburban voters, busy voters, working people, students. Everybody.
And it’s why, after we adopted vote-by-mail statewide, turnout went up — in every demographic group, seniors included.- Costs went down, and people across the state cheered the new system.
Today, Mr. President, I guarantee you, if a politician in Colorado tried to take away vote-by-mail, people would run them out of town. In my state, we’re proud of the election model that we’ve built in a collaborative, nonpartisan way.
And Ms. McReynolds deserves a lot of credit for that.
She’s the right kind of leader who isn’t satisfied with the status quo. She’s constantly asking how to make things better…How to make things more efficient…How to make complex systems simpler and more accessible and useful to people.
That’s exactly the kind of experience we need at the Postal Service, especially at a time when more Americans are voting by mail than ever before.
The Postal Service needs someone with her expertise, her leadership, and her impatience, frankly, with the status quo.
And it’s why I urge my colleagues from both parties to come together and confirm this outstanding nominee from my home state of Colorado.