By Raw Story and featured by Save the Post Office Steve Hutkins had this up in the News Section of his blog, Save the Post Office. If you do not remember, during the last election there were issues with USPS mail delivery delays and the conversion was stopped to allow for mail-in-ballots to get to Vote Counting Centers on time. Dejoy was told to stop till the election was over. DeJoy needs to leave. I am sure there are reasons Joe Biden has not replaced him as of yet. ~~~~~~~~ Raw Story: A noticeable slowdown in mail delivery by the US Postal Service (USPS) is becoming a significant concern for democracy advocates, as millions of Americans will be voting by mail this year. There’s growing worry about whether mail ballots will be counted in
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by Raw Story and featured by
Save the Post Office
Steve Hutkins had this up in the News Section of his blog, Save the Post Office. If you do not remember, during the last election there were issues with USPS mail delivery delays and the conversion was stopped to allow for mail-in-ballots to get to Vote Counting Centers on time. Dejoy was told to stop till the election was over. DeJoy needs to leave. I am sure there are reasons Joe Biden has not replaced him as of yet.
~~~~~~~~
Raw Story: A noticeable slowdown in mail delivery by the US Postal Service (USPS) is becoming a significant concern for democracy advocates, as millions of Americans will be voting by mail this year. There’s growing worry about whether mail ballots will be counted in time and particularly in swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
NBC News reported, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is a GOP donor who has been in his position since a Republican-controlled USPS Board of Governors put him there in 2020. DeJoy is being blamed for mail delays due to his 10-year restructuring of the USPS. The plan, dubbed “Delivering for America,” involves consolidating all mail-sorting operations to 60 regional distribution centers. The plan’s rollout began in the fall of 2023, and the on-time delivery rate of two-day, first-class mail has since dropped from 90% to 87.5%.
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AB: Considering the amount of mail being delivered, a 2.5% drop in mail delivery performance is a big deal. Charts for Atlanta and Nationally (below) are taken from Save The Post Office and added to the commentary by Angry Bear. It is meant to ive a better understanding of the delays from year to year.
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Former USPS manager Leo Raymond told NBC,
“It’s just a dumpster fire right now. “If you’re a business, you’re going to be discouraged from using the mail because you want your stuff to actually get there.”
In a a letter to DeJoy last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) led an effort with nearly two dozen Senate Democrats to publicly condemn DeJoy’s USPS overhaul and its effect on mail delivery. They warned that under the plan, “outgoing mail processing will move hundreds of miles to a regional facility, outside reasonable commuting distance and, in some cases, to another state entirely.”
“Wyoming, Vermont, and New Hampshire are set to lose all outgoing mail processing from within the state,” the letter read. “[F]or communities near facilities under review, it is unclear how local first-class mail will meet its two-day standard while traveling hundreds of miles for sorting. This is especially concerning for Americans who need reliable and expedient mail service to conduct business, pay their bills, receive medications, and stay in touch with loved ones.”
One of the hardest-hit metropolitan areas by DeJoy’s plan is Atlanta, which Leo Raymond described as “a complete house on fire.” According to NBC, the rate of on-time delivery of mail went from 60-70% to roughly 20%. And because President Joe Biden won the state by less than 12,000 votes in 2020 largely due to high Democratic turnout in the Atlanta Metro area, it’s expected that mail-in ballots could play a crucial role in deciding who wins Georgia’s electoral votes this November.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), who represents parts of Houston, said last month.
““We’re approaching a major November election. We need to make sure that we iron out any difficulties, any obstacles, any barriers, any issues now, so that we don’t end up in a situation much like we were in with the November ballots.”
Louis DeJoy’s tenure at the helm of the USPS may not continue for much longer. In March, President Biden nominated former US Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh to fill one of the USPS Board of Governors’ two vacancies. If confirmed by the US Senate, Walsh would be the sixth Democrat to sit on the nine-member board. And because DeJoy is accountable to the board rather than the president, the board could theoretically hold a vote to appoint a new postmaster general at any point.
Steve Hutkins at Save the Post Office website, told NBC that he hopes mail delays “won’t be a problem” in November as the USPS has in the past implemented special procedures to speed up mail delivery in previous elections. However, he didn’t rule out the possibility of a fiasco in the event of a nail-biter election.
“If the election is really close and a couple of key states have mail ballot issues, it could be a nightmare,” he said.
Click here to read NBC’s report in full.