Trump admits (today) that he’s trying to sabotage vote-by-mail.

https://www.postaltimes.com/postalnews/postal-workers-union-says-up-to-80000-letters-were-held-back-monday-in-southern-maine/

Postal workers’ union says up to 80,000 letters were held back Monday in southern Maine
August 11, 2020

Customers across southern Maine will be waiting on as many as 80,000 pieces of mail that will arrive late because of new U.S. Postal Service policies, the president of a local postal workers’ union said.

Rather than wait an extra 10 minutes for the mail to be ready, the trucks left the postal service’s Southern Maine Processing and Distribution Center in Scarborough exactly on time Monday morning, leaving behind roughly 80,400 letters that will be delivered late as a result, said Scott Adams, general president of the American Postal Workers Union Local 458. He estimated the processing center sorts approximately one million pieces of mail on a typical Sunday night.

Adams sent the Portland Press Herald information Monday morning outlining the amount of delayed mail broken down by destination. He said all the letters left behind had been sorted the previous night and just needed to be loaded onto mail carriers’ trucks for delivery.

A postal service spokesman said Monday evening that the union’s 80,000 figure was overblown. He also said the delayed letters were distributed later in the day and were not held until Tuesday.

Louis DeJoy's official rationale for the changes he has implemented at the Postal Service is itself indefensible. https://t.co/jjviNG3T3z pic.twitter.com/j0eZ7rrbJK

— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) August 15, 2020

from Facebook

Steve Buhler

The United States Postal Service is under direct threat, along with the many communities and institutions that it serves, due to the partisan and financially self-serving actions of its current Postmaster General. The USPS Board of Governors has the authority to remove the Postmaster General; Americans have the responsibility to ask the Board to protect the USPS.

A dear friend has done not only that but also gathered the Governors’ email addresses and shared her statement. I have used this information and model in sending my own messages and I encourage everyone who has not already communicated with the Board to do the same.

Here are the email addresses: mduncan@inezdepositbank.com; barger.jm@gmail.com; ron.bloom@brookfield.com; roman@rmiv.com; lee.moak@moakgroup.com; DirectorAccessMailbox@cigna.com.

This is based on what my friend wrote:

Dear USPS Governor,

As your fellow citizen, I implore you to remove the partisan Postmaster General from office. The United States Postal Service is an independent agency, like the military, and as such is obligated to run regardless of financial profit. As a result of the current Postmaster General’s irresponsible directives, veterans and others in need are not receiving their medication on time and bills paid on time are not being received on time. Americans’ precious right to vote is vulnerable to interference and interruption. No administration’s agenda is more important than our right to vote, which is fundamental to our country’s existence as a democratic republic. The proper functioning of the USPS is not a partisan issue; it is an issue of national interest and well-being.
I ask that you follow your conscience, act upon your personal integrity, and enable ALL Americans to participate fully in the American system with the infrastructural support and service of the non-partisan United States Postal Service.
You have a heroic role to play: saving lives with delivered medicines, saving hope with letters between generations who can’t be together now, protecting commerce during an economic crisis, saving free and fair elections. Please do the right thing and remove an administrator who has demonstrated callous and selfish disregard toward these vital functions and benefits of the USPS.

Los Angeles last night.

wv wrote:

Even if you drop ballots off in person — you still have to RECEIVE the ballots by mail, right?

w
v

Yes, unless you go to the precinct on Nov. 3. In WV, you can request your ballot right now, and voters will begin to be receive them on Sep. 19. You will get it in time. And probably WV is not going to be screwed with that much anyway as…you know.

It’s MI, NC, FL, PA, WI, and TX that are going to be screwed with. And apparently IL, CA, NY, and MA just because. It’s kind of pointless screwing with CA because even if they eliminated all of Los Angeles, Biden would still win this state by 3 million votes.

Absentee ballot request period begins Tuesday

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Zooey.

FBI urged to investigate Trump’s postmaster general for potential violations of two federal laws https://t.co/UYuYMrQ9RF

— Raw Story (@RawStory) August 17, 2020

==

Six states are huddling to decide whether they can sue Trump's government for intentional Post Office delays: reporthttps://t.co/usIYpNaWdz

— Raw Story (@RawStory) August 16, 2020

Postmaster General DeJoy suspends changes to Postal Service to avoid any impact on election mail

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/postmaster-general-dejoy-suspends-changes-usps-until-after-election-n1237122?fbclid=IwAR3WjupA1iBocHLquRWGcEuAA7AMOyYCv2zA0jKrOm7aArfEW36n7Ke6b24

The U.S. Postal Service will suspend any policy or operational changes until after the presidential election, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Tuesday.

Critics claimed that DeJoy was hindering the agency’s ability to accommodate an expected surge in mail-in voting, which he denied.

DeJoy, a close ally of President Donald Trump and a longtime Republican donor who was appointed in May, said that he had come to the federal agency to make changes that would allow for “its long-term sustainability” but that he intended to delay the efforts as scrutiny of the practices has grown — despite his view that the Postal Service needed a significant overhaul.

“In the meantime, there are some longstanding operational initiatives — efforts that predate my arrival at the Postal Service — that have been raised as areas of concern as the nation prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating pandemic,” he said. “To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded.”

DeJoy said the hours of post offices would not change, mail processing equipment and blue mailboxes would not be removed, all mail processing facilities would remain open and the Postal Service would again allow overtime to be “approved as needed.”

The announcement included DeJoy’s intention to expand the agency’s leadership task force on election mail to include members of postal unions and management associations.

DeJoy, a former logistics executive, faced intense scrutiny for nationwide shipping delays after he made a number of policy changes that included eliminating overtime and restricting postal carriers from taking on additional routes to deliver mail on time.

Questions also rose over the removal of blue Postal Service mailboxes, as well as the decommissioning of 671 letter-sorting machines at Postal Service facilities, removals that predated DeJoy’s appointment.

Nevertheless, the delays and the optics have roiled Democrats who accused DeJoy and Trump of hamstringing the agency to undermine mail-in voting. Postal workers across the country added their voices, asserting that the policies adopted by DeJoy — which he said are intended to cut costs and increase efficiency — have caused the holdup in deliveries, including prescription drugs, Social Security checks and other pieces of essential mail.

Trump denied intentionally slowing the Postal Service, telling reporters Monday that he “encouraged everybody to speed up the mail, not slow the mail.”

DeJoy is set to testify before Congress this week.

Concerns over the Postal Service’s ability to handle election mail grew when numerous states received letters from the Postal Service last week that warned that the agency would not be able to fulfill requests for mail-in ballots.

The potential delays are a significant concern for many, as millions of Americans are expected to send in their votes through the Postal Service this year because of concerns over the coronavirus.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, both Democrats, shared their intention to file lawsuits against the postmaster general over his policy changes. At least 18 states are involved in the lawsuits.

When asked by reporters about DeJoy’s announcement, both men laughed and said their lawsuits would proceed.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Shapiro said. “Hopefully the American people can breathe a sigh of relief, but I will not let my foot off the gas so long as the postal officials continue to violate the law through their procedural steps.”

I read today that there isn’t time to reinstall them, that the installation takes quite a long time.

So…that article says mailboxes were removed because people are mailing fewer letters.

But it doesn’t explain why the sorting machines were removed.

Washington Postal Workers Defy USPS Orders And Reinstall Mail Sorting Machines
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielcassady/2020/08/22/washington-postal-workers-defy-usps-orders-and-reinstall-mail-sorting-machines/?fbclid=IwAR1BtjolFbYIayLjjqdQejI5l7DWPzUV-uwG3jeXcUODeUE8Ck0u3_FSv2E#39be1e015f80