U.S. Postal Service Ends Controversial Changes Amid Voting Fury

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Reuters

The U.S. Postal Service has suspended new policies that have been decried as an attempt to sabotage the 2020 election.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has said he will reverse operational changes that critics say impede postal voting.

The U-turn comes as Mr DeJoy is scheduled to testify in Congress and at least 20 states prepare to file a lawsuit.

There is a fierce debate over postal funding in 2020 as record numbers of Americans are expected to vote by mail due to the pandemic.

The US Postal Service (USPS) under Mr. DeJoy’s leadership had started what he said were cost-cutting measures in recent months.

What changed?

Policies initiated under Mr. DeJoy included removing mailboxes, canceling deliveries and closing sorting centers.

In a sharp turnaround, Mr DeJoy has now said post office hours will not be reduced and letterboxes and sorting machines will stop being phased out.

Mr DeJoy, a former Republican donor, also said overtime pay would continue to be approved to ensure deliveries arrive on time.

“To avoid even the appearance of an impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until the end of the election,” DeJoy said in a statement.

• What is the US Postal Service talking about?

Why turn around?

A week ago, Donald Trump said he did not want any additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service for fear the money would be used to help process the postal vote. It was all part of his ongoing and largely unfounded campaign against the increased use of postal ballots to minimize the risk of the coronavirus spreading.

On Monday, the president tweeted that he wanted to “save the post” and told a crowd in Minnesota that he would “beef up” the service.

And now his Postmaster General has said the agency will stop going out of PO boxes and restrict delivery routes.

What changed?

It turns out that the postal service is quite popular. A Morning Consult poll found that 80% of Americans had a positive opinion. Older people use it to receive prescription drugs. For rural residents, it is a lifeline for the rest of the world.

Whether the recent moves were part of a long-planned change or, as some leftist suspects, the result of a larger plot, the White House concluded that there was only one way out: retirement.

What is the reaction?

The development comes as controversy over the politicization of the most popular U.S. government agency has become a major issue in the 2020 presidential campaign.

Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama – in what has been considered his most publicized criticism of his successor to date – accused Mr. Trump of trying to “actively burp” the Postal Service.

Advocates for the changes said they were needed to help the USPS lift itself out of financial debt. Its budget deficit grew to $ 160 billion (£ 122 billion) amid a decade-long drop in mail volume.

However, Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 postal workers, told Fox News on Tuesday that the changes “really slow down mail, customers see it … postal workers see it – mail is all saved “.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi applauded the postmaster’s about-face on Tuesday, telling reporters: “They felt the heat and that’s what we were trying to do, make it too hot to handle.” On Sunday, Pelosi reminded the House of a recess to investigate USPS policies.

Mr. DeJoy, a major political donor who was appointed by Mr. Trump to lead the USPS in May, is due to testify before a Republican-led Senate committee on Friday and then before a Democratic-led House committee on Monday.

What did Trump say?

Last week, President Trump said he was rejecting an increase in USPS funding to support an expected inflow of mail-in voting, claiming without evidence that it would lead to voter fraud and help Democrats.

Mr Trump also suggested delaying the election, which he has no authority to do, to stop postal ballots leading to “inaccurate and fraudulent” results.

• Does postal voting in the United States lead to “huge fraud”?

Postal voting is not new to the United States. According to Reuters, around one in four voters voted by mail in 2016.

Critics say people could vote more than once via postal ballots and then again in person, although many national and state studies over the years have found no evidence of widespread fraud.

But these are rare incidents, and the overall voter fraud rate in the United States is between 0.00004% and 0.0009%, according to a Brennan Center for Justice Study 2017.