Elections Officials Beg Louis DeJoy To DeBug DeMail Before DeElection
DeJoy does not bring joy.
Just when you might have thought you don’t have to know the full name of the US Postmaster General (that would be Louis DeJoy, and don’t even ask us how he’s still in the job!), two national groups representing America’s state and local elections officials sent him a letter identifying some serious problems with mail delivery that could potentially “disenfranchise voters” and saying HEY FIX THIS.
For the sake of timing, the Associated Press notes that the letter went out yesterday to coincide with the first general election ballots in the US, sent to absentee voters in Alabama.
Here’s the AP’s summary of the potential problem areas:
In an alarming letter, the officials said that over the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be counted. They also noted that properly addressed election mail was being returned to them as undeliverable, a problem that could automatically send voters to inactive status through no fault of their own, potentially creating chaos when those voters show up to cast a ballot.
The letter also notes that the election officials’ attempts to work with the Postal Service have been unsuccessful, and that there were so many issues nationwide that the fuckups are “not one-off mistakes or a problem with specific facilities. Instead, it demonstrates a pervasive lack of understanding and enforcement of USPS policies among its employees.”
Customer service and democracy, boy, I don’t know.
The letter was sent jointly by the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors, which represent state and local elections offices in all 50 states, DC, and our quaint colonial holdovers who should riot to demand statehood. It noted that despite “repeated engagement with USPS Election and Political Mail headquarters staff” and regional postal managers, elections offices hadn’t seen any “improvement or concerted efforts” to fix problems the groups had called attention to, so what the hell, man?
The letter cited spotty training of Postal Service staff — not only local letter carriers but all the way up to Customer Relations management, which meant that voters and local elections offices had been given faulty information about USPS policies on election mail. With 600,000 employees, that’s a lot of people who may or may not know how election mail should be handled.
Worse, despite Postal Service assurances that the agency has ironed out much of the widespread WhatTheFuckistry seen well in advance of the 2020 vote, the letter notes that “local election officials are receiving timely postmarked ballots well after Election Day and well outside the three to five business days” that USPS says is the standard for first-class mail. Several states reported receiving “anywhere from dozens to hundreds of ballots 10 or more days after postmark,” crashing up against the limits at which states count ballots postmarked on or before Election Day. That usually ranges from one to 10 days after the election; only Alaska and Utah allow up to 14 days after.
On top of that, elections officials have seen “higher than usual rates” of election mail being returned as undeliverable — not just ballots, but applications, election notices and the like — “even in cases where a voter is known not to have moved.” That’s worrisome because election mail that’s returned as undeliverable can trigger the process by which people are removed from voter rolls, leading to people being unable to vote even though they were unaware of any problems.
Postal Service spokespeople this week were all smiles and assurances that the agency is ready to handle election mail on time, although as the AP notes, a modernization program “has caused some delivery hiccups.” USPS says its current first-class delivery time averages 2.7 days as long as your postal carrier isn’t named “Newman,” but it also urges people not to put off getting ballots in on time.
“We are ready to deliver. We were successful in 2020 delivering a historic volume of mail in ballots; also in 2022 and will do so again in November 2024,” Adrienne Marshall, director of Election Mail and Government Services, said in a statement. […]
Postal Service officials told reporters last month that almost 98% of ballots were returned to election officials within three days in 2020, and in 2022, the figure was nearly 99%. DeJoy said he would like to inch closer to 100% this election cycle and that the Postal Service is better positioned to handle ballots than four years ago.
Also too, we noticed that, just to be sure DeJoy and a long CC list of federal and congressional officials received the letter, a rather pointed notation at the end adds “LETTER SENT VIA EMAIL AND U.S. MAIL.”
Seems only prudent.
[AP / Letter to Dejoy via National Association of Secretaries of State]
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I work from home, mostly. Often from my front porch. It's lovely in summer. So I see my letter carrier daily, and chat with him from time to time.
DeJoy has sabotaged USPS to benefit a company he himself owns. He also stands to profit from UPS, Federal Express, and DHL. He's far from alone. The atrocious law that gutted USPS financially passed nearly 20 years ago, with overwhelming and bipartisan support; including lots of lobbying dollars from the above-named companies. The names of prominent politicians on the take would not surprise anyone. Nor would it surprise anyone that none of them will admit it today. The law was recently overturned legislatively, but the damage is done.
USPS isn't hiring enough personnel. Carriers have to deliver the mail to where the sorting system says, even if it's obviously wrong. They often can't finish their routes without incurring overtime, and are not allowed to incur OT; so they are required to take the rest of it back to the PO. This is why I get mail 3-4 days a week, even when the USPS "Informed Delivery" app says it's coming every day.
DeJoy is torpedoing USPS on purpose. And he has a lot of high-level support. Some open; some secret.
There are very obvious reasons he's still in his post.
I never received my 2023 tax refund, so I finally got around to checking the Where's My Refund site. It wouldn't tell me, saying the data I input didn't match their records (but wouldn't tell me what the problem was or how to correct it). So I called them, and their phone tree recording told me the check had been sent but had been returned by the PO as undeliverable. A few phone calls later, they confirmed that they'd sent it to the correct address, so we still don't know why the PO couldn't deliver it. (nor why their phone computer could tell me that info, but the website couldn't)
Also I got the bill for my homeowner's insurance the day before it was due, despite it having been mailed ten days earlier.
I think I hate DeJoy almost as much as DeTrump.