FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
election 2020
crats and Republicans alike. He
has repeatedly gone after the
Postal Service, recently suggest-
ing that the agency cannot be
trusted to deliver ballots.
DeJoy, a North Carolina logis-
tics executive who donated more
than $2 million to GOP political
committees in the past four years,
approved changes that took effect
July 13 that the agency said were
aimed at cutting costs for the
debt-laden mail service. They in-
cluded prohibiting overtime pay,
shutting down sorting machines
early and requiring letter carriers
to leave mail behind when neces-
sary to avoid extra trips or late
delivery on routes.
The new policies have resulted
in at least a two-day delay in
scattered parts of the country,
even for express mail, according
to multiple postal workers and
union leaders. Letter carriers are
manually sorting more mail, add-
ing to the delivery time. Bins of
mail ready for delivery are sitting
in post offices because of schedul-
ing and route changes. And with-
out the ability to work overtime,
workers say the logjam is worsen-
ing without an end in sight.
As states look to dramatically
expand the use of mail-in ballots
this fall, postal workers across the
country said the changes could
lead to chaos in November.
“I’m actually terrified to see
election season under the new
procedure,” said Lori Cash, presi-
dent of the American Postal
Workers Union (APWU) Local 183
in Western New York.
David Partenheimer, spokes-
man for the U.S. Postal Service,
said the recent changes a im to
stabilize the agency after decades
of financial woes. The procedures
are not meant to slow the delivery
of ballots or any other mail, he
said, adding that any problems
will be short-lived, he said.
“Of course we acknowledge
that temporary service impacts
can occur... but any such im-
pacts will be monitored and tem-
porary,” Partenheimer said.
Partenheimer said that claims
that DeJoy takes directions from
Trump are “wholly misplaced and
off-base,” noting that the post-
master general is appointed by a
bipartisan board of governors.
In a meeting with DeJoy on
Thursday, the head of one of the
nation’s largest postal workers
unions said he shared the “deep
concerns” of postal workers that
the new procedures are causing
mounting backlogs that could af-
fect the election.
“I vehemently weighed in that
this is wrong,” said Mark Dimond-
stein, president of the APWU,
which represents more than
200,000 postal employees and re-
tirees. “It’s wrong for the people of
the country, it’s wrong for the
public Postal Service. It drives
away business and revenue. And
it’s wrong for the workers.”
Dimondstein said DeJoy told
him that he is committed to mail
voting and providing full assis-
tance to states as they run their
elections.
“I plan, and the people of the
country plan, to hold him to his
word,” the union leader said.
Voters and postal workers have
reported scattered problems
across the country in recent days,
including in key battleground
states such as Wisconsin, Michi-
gan, North Carolina and Pennsyl-
vania, raising concerns among
residents whether their states are
being targeted because of their
importance in the presidential
and Senate elections.
In Michigan, which is gearing
up for its Aug. 4 p rimary, election
administrators said they have
fielded complaints from voters
who had not yet received their
ballots as of this week. Election
clerks are advising voters to drop
off their ballot Tuesday rather
than sending it back via mail, out
of fear that the ballots will not be
returned in time to be counted.
“I don’t think it’s a widespread
issue, but anytime we get mail
delayed, especially first class, or
not delivered at all, it becomes a
concern,” said Phil Kerns, the city
clerk of Frankenmuth, in the cen-
tral part of Michigan.
The upheaval inside the Postal
Service has sparked condemna-
tion from top Democrats. Speak-
ing on Thursday at a service me-
morializing the late representa-
tive John Lewis, former president
Barack Obama decried “those in
power who are doing their darnd-
est to discourage people from vot-
ing... even undermining the
Postal Service in the run-up to an
election that’s going to be depen-
dent on mail-in ballots so people
don’t get sick.”
And four Senate Democrats
wrote to DeJoy on Thursday, de-
manding information about the
new procedures, calling them
“questionable.”
USPS FROM A
“Your failure to provide Con-
gress with relevant information
about these recent changes or to
clarify to postal employees what
changes you have directed as
Postmaster General, undermines
public trust and only increases
concerns that service compromis-
es will grow in advance of the
election and peak mail volumes in
November,” wrote Minority Lead-
er Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), Sen.
Gary Peters (Mich.), Sen. Amy
Klobuchar (Minn.) and Sen.
Thomas R. Carper (Del.).
The delays are especially
alarming given the impending
flood of campaign and election
mail and a potential resurgence of
coronavirus cases in the fall that
could lead to staff shortages, Post-
al Service employees said. Their
frustrations have led some to dub
the new postmaster “Louie De-
Lay” in private, several workers
said.
“I’m a little frightened. By the
time political season rolls around,
I shudder to think what it’s going
to look like,” said a postal employ-
ee in Pennsylvania, who, like
many others, spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity out of fear of
retribution.
In a meeting Wednesday with
Ronnie Stutts, president of the
National Rural Letter Carriers As-
sociation, DeJoy said his relation-
ship with the president does not
affect his decisions at the agency,
Stutts said.
“I asked him, ‘Do you know that
your president who you support... is not real high on voting by
mail? He don’t like that.’ And he
said, ‘Let me tell you something.
... My relationship with the presi-
dent is not going to have anything
to do with me doing my job,’ ” said
Stutts, who said he believes the
changes will make the agency
more efficient.
A shift at the Postal Service
Trump has repeatedly gone af-
ter the Postal Service, calling it “a
joke” and demanding it raise the
rates it charges companies such
as Amazon. (Amazon founder and
chief executive Jeff Bezos owns
The Washington Post.) In recent
months, the administration has
sought to leverage the agency’s
financial woes, made worse by the
pandemic and declines in profit-
able first- and second-class mail.
On Wednesday, the Postal Service
agreed to give the Treasury De-
partment information about its
private-sector contracts in ex-
change for a $10 billion emergen-
cy loan authorized by Congress in
an early round of coronavirus
relief spending.
Weeks after DeJoy took over,
agency officials released an inter-
nal memo announcing a “pivot”
for all employees.
Traditionally, postal workers
are trained not to leave letters
behind and to make multiple de-
livery trips to ensure mail is deliv-
ered on time — which can incur
extra costs in overtime hours,
transportation and more.
Officials laid out a shift away
from this approach, saying that
such practices cost the organiza-
tion about $200 million in added
expenses, according to the memo,
which was obtained by The Post.
Among the changes is a new,
strict cutoff time in the morning
for mail carriers to pick up items
to deliver that day, several postal
employees from three different
states said.
The machines that typically
sort mail and prepare them for
pickup by carriers are being shut
down earlier in some areas to cut
costs, requiring carriers to sort
more mail by hand once they
arrive in the morning.
That means any mail that is not
ready by cutoff time waits at least
another day. And if there is anyerror in hand-sorted mail, it
needs to be rerouted to another
carrier — which could lead to
three to four extra days of waiting.
As a result of these changes, guar-
anteed shipping dates are not
being met, the employees said.
“This is forced. These are
things that don’t have to happen,”
one worker from Pennsylvania
said.
Cash, who works in Lancaster,N.Y., said her post office is about
two days behind its normal pro-
cessing time.
“The cardinal rule is, ‘don’t de-
lay the mail,’ and we’re in a 180-de-
gree switch where we’re delaying
mail every day,” she said, adding
that if the system is not fixed
before election season, “it’s going
to be a catastrophe at the post
office.”
Partenheimer said the agencyis not slowing down mail, but that
it is “reemphasizing” plans that
are meant to make the Postal
Service more prompt and reliable.
Stutts said he is confident the
changes under DeJoy will make
the agency more efficient and fi-
nancially stable, and that con-
cerns about delays are exaggerat-
ed and premature.
“ What he is putting in place, I
want to give the man an opportu-
nity to do what he’s wanting to
do,” Stutts said. “You’re really not
delaying anything. What you’re
doing is, you’re running an effi-
cient operation.”
Stutts said that agency officials
have said they plan to keep the
new procedures in place as a trial
for about 30 to 60 days. The Postal
Service did not respond to a re-
quest about its timeline.Worries for November
The mail delay comes as elec-
tion officials across the country
are struggling to process a crush
of absentee ballots driven by the
pandemic.
A delay in delivering ballots to
voters and then returning them
back to election officials could
cause people to be disenfran-
chised — especially in states that
require ballots to be returned by
Election Day, voting rights ex-
perts warn.
Already, tens of thousands of
ballots across the country have
been disqualified in this y ear’s
primaries, many because they did
not arrive in time.
In Wisconsin, 2,659 ballots that
were returned after the April 13deadline for the spring primary
were not counted due to their late
arrival, according to the state
election commission. In Califor-
nia, 70,330 ballots were disquali-
fied because they missed the
deadline, according to an AP anal-
ysis.
Ballots are typically sorted by
hand and prioritized by postal
workers so they can be sure they
are delivered on time, USPS em-
ployees said.
The current backlogs are be-
coming so dire that if the new
procedures remain in place,
workers may not be able to locate
all the ballots in time for them to
be processed, they said.
“If they keep this up until the
election, there’s no telling how
many days-worth of delays there
could be. I mean, we’ll be deliver-
ing political mail days after the
election,” a postal worker from
California said.
Election officials across the
country are w arning voters to
send their general-election bal-
lots as early as possible to avoid
potential delays. The Postal Ser-
vice recommends voters request
their ballots at least 15 days before
Election Day and mail their com-
pleted ballots at least one week
before the due date.
Partenheimer, the Postal Ser-
vice spokesman, said delivery
standards for election mail have
not changed. He urged election
officials and voters to be aware of
the time it takes to prepare and
deliver ballots.
[email protected]
[email protected]Postal Service backlog could affect voting, workers warn
ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
A letter carrier wears a mask while preparing mail for delivery at a U.S. Postal Service facility in
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