| This analysis only covers USPS package delivery, which is different from flats. Ballots are flats. Magazines are flats. Letters are flats. Anything non-bendable isn't. This is what has been happening to USPS, folks: 1. Because of COVID19, flats volume has collapsed, while package volume has skyrocketed. Flats sorting machines can do absolutely nothing for packages for reasons that are left up to the reader, so USPS has been shutting them down and moving them out of processing facilities in favor of package sorting. 2. Because USPS is losing lots of money overall (higher package volume doesn't make up for the collapse in flats volume)[1], it has been cutting back on overtime, just like any other employer would. 3. People hear about 1 and 2, hear about/experience packages being delivered more slowly, and think that this surely means that "the Trump administration is trying to sabotage the post office to suppress voting!!!!". They do this without thinking about it at all: 3a. As stated, flats volume has collapsed, so there is still a lot of excess capacity. 3b. Even if every single voter were to vote by mail only, this would mean at most two additional flat pieces per voter (one ballot to the voter, and one ballot sent back). Think about how much mail (not packages, mail) you already receive daily on average. Do you really think two additional pieces would collapse the system? Of course not, any more than the USPS collapses every January when the IRS and every single employer, bank, and other financial institution sends out tax-related documents. (The USPS hires seasonal help in December for packages, not for Christmas cards.) 3c. If this really were a sinister Trump administration voter-suppression scheme, it's a pretty weak one that can be defeated by dropping ballots off in person, and/or voting in person. 4. An actual serious issue is states and counties that aren't like Oregon (which has been 100% vote by mail for two decades) trying to convert to vote by mail without preparation. Think of how much mail your home receives for the previous tenant (and the one before that, and the one before that). Think of this all having to be done by early October, to give voters about a month to receive and return ballots. This is what the administration has been pointing out, something rarely heard amidst the nonsense about mail-vote suppression. [1] Congress mandating the USPS to prepay pensions is a good thing. The postal service is an industry that is, by definition, in secular decline (barring unusual events like COVID19) because of the Internet. Congress recognized this in 2006 and thus required USPS to prepare over 10 years to get its pensions ready, because there's no reason to believe that future revenue (and future employee-count growth) is going to sustain pensions for retirees otherwise. |
The FDA loses money.
The FCC loses money.
These are public institutions, not for profit enterprises. They're funded partially by fees and usually largely by congressional appropriations.
You beg the question by beginning by comparing the USPS to other carriers. It's one of the few public institutions required by the constitution! Even the Defense Department doesn't get that privilege, and it loses hundreds of billions a year and doesn't have the same requirement to fund pensions for employees who haven't been born yet.
Lastly, delaying flats and prioritizing packages during a situation when many, perhaps most people will vote by mail due to a public health crisis is if not malicious, dangerously ignorant of the societal implications.
Yes, the USPS can handle the volume. But for the sake of our elections, and based on issues we may have with counting ballots, postmark and receipt date laws that vary by state, can we agree as a bipartisan issue that mail delivery now, of all times, shouldn't be compromised?