The Economist - USA (2020-08-08)

24 United States TheEconomistAugust 8th 2020

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Afterthe 2016 election,activistsaligned

withtheDemocratsclaimedthatlawsre-

quiringvoterstopresentphotoidbefore

theycouldvotecostHillaryClinton the

stateofWisconsinandmaybetheentire

election.Butacademicshavepoureda lot

ofcoldwateronthesetheories;thereisno

compelling evidence that voter-id laws

changedtheresultof the 2016 election.

Likewise,in 2018 theDemocraticcandidate

forgovernorofGeorgiaallegedthatherop-

ponent,now-governorBrianKemp,used

hispowerasthesecretaryofstate(aposi-

tionthatisresponsibleforadministering

elections) to disenfranchise voters and

denyhertheelection.Oneinvestigation

intothecontestfoundthata programme

designedtoverifytheinformationvoters

submitwiththeirapplicationsforregistra-

tion could have disenfranchised up to

50,000Georgians.YetMrKemp’smargin

was55,000votes—evenifeverysinglevot-

er who was disenfranchised voted for his

opponent, he would still have won.

The right to queue

If worries about these three groups of bad

actors can be overblown, Americans are far

too relaxed about less exotic kinds of trou-

ble on election day—the kind caused by in-

competent administration, weird laws,

lack of funding and too few volunteers at

polling places.

America’s constitution, unlike those of

other Western democracies, does not guar-

antee all its eligible citizens the right to

vote. Instead, it leaves election administra-

tion up to the states. Polling-place closures

and long queues caused by a lack of volun-

teers, as well as failures of new electronic

machines (which happened in Georgia this

year) are routine. The whole system is a bit

creaky: an analysis by researchers at the

Brennan Centre for Justice, a law and vot-

ing-rights group, found that the vast major-

ity of states are using voting machines that

are no longer manufactured.

Though a visit to a polling place lasts

minutes in many other Western democra-

cies, it can take hours from start to finish in

America.Bigcitiesoftenhavetoofewpoll-

ingplaceswithtoofewworkersandcum-

bersomevotingmachines.Allthiswaiting

candissuadepeoplefromvoting,aneffect

seendisproportionatelyamongnon-white

Americans.Onepolltakenafterthe 2016

electionrevealedthat73%ofnon-whites

saidtheyhadtowaitinlinetocasttheir

votes,comparedwith60%ofwhites.The

longersomeonehastowait,themorethe

disparity grows; non-whites were 40%

likelierthanwhitestoreportwaitinglon-

gerthanhalfanhourtovote(seechart).

ThefailureoftheNewYorkBoardof

Electionstoprepareforaninfluxofmail-in

ballotsthisyearhasraisedrenewedcon-

cernsaboutthecapacityofpostalvoting

systems(seenextstory).Covid-19means

morevotersthaneverwillattempttocast

theirvotesbypostinNovember.Theus

ElectionAssistanceCommission,anagen-

cychargedwithhelpingelectionadminis-

trators,reckonsthatin 2016 41%ofballots

werecastbeforeelectionday.Ifthatshare

increaseditwouldlessenwaitingtimesat

pollingstations.Butthepostalserviceand

ballot-counterswouldbeinundatedwith

envelopessentbyvoterswhoarenewto

theprocessandmayhavetheirballotdis-

cardedbecauseofsomeminortechnical

glitch.Morepostalvotingcouldalsomake

countingmuchsloweronelectionnight,

creatingdoubtaboutwhohasreallywon

thatcouldlastfordaysoreven,inthecase

ofa tighterelection,months.^7

Wait (and wait and wait) for it

United States, self-reported time spent waiting

tovote,2016,%replying ,byrace

Source: Alexander Agadjanian, 2016 Cooperative

Congressional Election Study

More than

an hour

30-60 minutes

10-30 minutes

Less than

ten minutes

No wait

403020100

Whites Non-whites

“T

he postal service”, said Donald

Trump, as he signed covid-19 relief

legislation in the spring, “is a joke.” He con-

tended that the United States Postal Service

(usps) is losing money by “handing out

packages for Amazon and other internet

companies”, and needed to quadruple its

package rates. Far from being a joke, the

uspsis the nation’s favourite government

agency, viewed favourably by 91% of Amer-

icans. But it is losing money: $4.5bn from

January to March, more than double its

losses for the same period last year. Neither

the reasons nor the solution are quite so

simple—and many see ulterior motives be-

hind Mr Trump’s contempt.

The usps’s financial woes have three

main causes, one acute and two chronic.

The acute one is covid-19. At least 2,400

postal workers have caught the virus and

60 have died. More than 17,000 of its

630,000 employees have been quaran-

tined. Although package volume and rev-

enue has grown along with online shop-

ping, the volume of first-class and

marketing mail have both declined.

Chronic problem number one is the de-

cline in first-class mail, the postal service’s

most profitable offering. In a digital age

people send fewer letters and postcards.

Chronic problem two is the Postal Account-

ability and Enhancement Act (paea), a law

passed with bipartisan support in 2006

that requires uspsto prepay a large share of

future retirees’ health benefits—a burden

imposed on no other federal agency.

On current trends, the postal service es-

timates that it could run out of money

sometime between April and October 2021,

unless there is relief or reform. House

Democrats included money for the postal

service in their version of the caresAct en-

acted in March, but after Steven Mnuchin,

the Treasury secretary, said Mr Trump

would veto any legislation that included

funding for the postal service, it was cut.

The only relief the uspshas so far been of-

fered is a $10bn line of credit from the Trea-

sury that lets Mr Mnuchin see the terms of

its ten biggest contracts, which includes

the one with Amazon (the uspsdoes a lot of

“last mile” delivery for Amazon).

To put the service on firmer financial

footing—or, some believe, to undermine

it—Louis DeJoy, who became Postmaster

General in May, implemented operational

changes last month. Instead of setting as a

paramount goal delivering to customers all

mail received by a post office on a given

morning, the new rules forbid carriers

from leaving late or making extra trips back

to the station, as often happens if more

mail arrives than a single truck can hold.

Many question why Mr DeJoy opted to

implement those changes just before a

presidential election that will be unusually

reliant on mailed ballots. Mr DeJoy, unlike

the previous four postmasters general, has

WASHINGTON, DC

The most popular government service

is mired in avoidable dysfunction

The postal service

Law of the letter

Sorting the US out