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Thread: If you're worried about election security/delays as it pertains to mail ik ballots, consider this: I ran some back of the napkin numbers on my USPS career and can now safely figure the number of pieces of mail/parcels I've personally delivered to be in the high 7 figures.
That's letters, parcels, magazines, flats, ballots, EDDM, weekly ads, etc.
In all my near-decade career, I've never deliberately delayed a single piece of mail. Everything had a reason: closed business, obstructed delivery point, loose dog, construction, police activity, etc.
In all my near-decade career, I've never deliberately delayed a single piece of mail. Everything had a reason: closed business, obstructed delivery point, loose dog, construction, police activity, etc.
At the end of a given day, you're not apt to bring back more than a half dozen (on a good day) pieces actually for your route, and those are computer missorts, redelivered the next day.
Occasionally you mess up on your own, maybe bring back a few that just slipped out of sequence. Again, delivered the next day.
This many years in, the number brought back is surely in the 1000s. But never without reason, never on purpose, and never without being reattempted IMMEDIATELY.
But in the last few weeks, entirely at the behest of new PMG and full-time Trump sycophant Louis DeJoy, this has radically changed. I can personally attest to the MANDATED delay of literally hundreds of pieces of mail in just the last 96 hours for only a single route.
This is bills. This is unemployment checks. This is medicine. Parcels. Business correspondence. Your birthday card from dad that for once isn't late just because he forgot. And, yes, geico ads. But most importantly? Election mail.
My county has begun mailing out info cards to every voter to make sure the right address is on file, so everyone can vote safely during covid 19 by mail.
Last night, as I sifted through mail delayed since MONDAY, I found no fewer than two dozen such cards.
Last night, as I sifted through mail delayed since MONDAY, I found no fewer than two dozen such cards.
That's right, I am not stating I have been a PERSONAL witness to the delay of election/ballot related mailings in our office, despite a full contingent of available carriers to make the deliveries possible.
Now, at this juncture we have several months still until the election, so the delay won't yet ripple into impacting votes. But if this is still going on by October? Tens, if not hundreds of thousands, will be deliberately disenfranchised.
This is not about simply undermining your faith in the system. It's about actively impeding your ability to participate in it.
It is absolutely not a coincidence that the same time Trump is taking to Twitter to proclaim mail service as unreliable, and the elections in need of delay, that his new PMG lapdog that he tried to extort into power, is working to make us appear unreliable.
It is practically a cornerstone of modern political conservatism to champion small government as a response to government failures that they deliberately made happen.
It happened with the 2006 PAEA, and it's happening again now.
It happened with the 2006 PAEA, and it's happening again now.
When you appoint a new PMG with 8 figures worth of stock holdings in competing companies, and his first orders of business are to undermine a two century work ethic and philosophy, it's not a change in leadership. It's a hijacking.
When that PMG is appointed by a president who does not want elections to be held, and his first orders of business are to shatter your ability to safely vote, that is not a business decision, it's an attempted power grab.
18 U.S. Code § 1703 makes it clear that the deliberate delay of mail is against the law. We may very well live in an era where US Code is more of a guideline to be ignored, but it doesn't have to be.
If you have the time contact our inspectors general. Ask them why election mail is being unnecessarily delayed. Get on the phone with local supervisors. Jam up their lines.
If you even SUSPECT your mail has been delayed, whether b/c informed delivery told you something was coming that never did, or because you just know you're waiting for something, do NOT hesitate to make a stink of it.
It may be annoying now, but it could change an election later
It may be annoying now, but it could change an election later
And if you want some of the best, most accountable reporting on USPS right now, follow @jacobbogage at the Washington Post, whose tools and reach go far deeper than one pissant mailman could ever go. He's doing a great job on this.
