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What’s the possible conservative explanation for the recent dismantling of the USPS?!?!? (1 Viewer)

@HellToupee

Sorting machines

HT - Without knowing the specifics of where these machines have been pulled from and what they have in place etc, can you say what pulling one of these out of an area would do to mail delivery or workloads for the staff in these areas?

To the outsider this seems like a bad idea. Are they replacing these things with different tech? Is there another way to do this process faster?

 
‘Like Armageddon’: Rotting food, dead animals and chaos at postal facilities amid cutbacks

Employees at California postal facilities provide a glimpse of the chaos amid both the pandemic and widespread cuts imposed by the USPS.

Six weeks ago, U.S. Postal Service workers in the high desert town of Tehachapi, Calif., began to notice crates of mail sitting in the post office in the early morning that should have been shipped out for delivery the night before.

At a mail processing facility in Santa Clarita in July, workers discovered that their automated sorting machines had been disabled and padlocked.

And inside a massive mail-sorting facility in South Los Angeles, workers fell so far behind processing packages that by early August, gnats and rodents were swarming around containers of rotted fruit and meat, and baby chicks were dead inside their boxes.
Accounts of conditions from employees at California mail facilities provide a glimpse of what some say are the consequences of widespread cutbacks in staffing and equipment recently imposed by the postal service.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, responding to a national outcry over service disruptions and fears of voter disenfranchisement, said this week he would suspend many planned changes until after the election. But postal workers say significant damage has already been done, including the removal of mail-sorting machines, which may not be replaced.

While the long-term effect of the cuts on U.S. mail service is unclear, the evidence of serious disruptions appears to be mounting, according to postal employees interviewed by The Times as well as customers, lawmakers and union leaders.

Until this week, the postal service was implementing a sweeping plan to remove 671 mail-sorting machines, or about 10% of its total, from facilities across the U.S. — including 76 in California. Officials also slashed overtime pay and imposed a new policy that could delay outgoing mail.

The cuts have had a ripple effect in California, snarling the operation of one of the biggest mail-processing facilities in the country and delaying the delivery of prescriptions, rent payments and unemployment checks. Some people have complained of going days without receiving any mail at all.

At least five high-speed mail-sorting machines have been removed from a processing plant in Sacramento, said Omar Gonzalez, the Western regional coordinator for the American Postal Workers Union. Additionally, two of the machines have been removed in Santa Ana and six in San Diego, Gonzalez said.

Processing plants serve more than 1,000 California post offices, some of which deliver to far-flung, rural addresses that could be faced with high delivery costs if serviced by private mail carriers.

Inside one sprawling facility at Florence and Central avenues in Los Angeles, which serves 92 L.A.-area post offices, seven delivery bar code sorters were removed in June, leaving three, Gonzalez said.

Each of those machines, which would handle mail-in ballots, can process up to 35,000 pieces of mail per hour.

“A lot of the machinery has already been gutted. Some of it has been dismantled and relocated or trashed,” Gonzalez said. “Although we welcome the news of the suspension of these changes, it’s just that — a suspension. The attacks and undermining of our operations will resume, maybe at the worst possible time, in December, our peak season.”

Before the recent cuts, workers at the facility were working six days per week, and were still struggling to keep up with the volume of packages driven by an influx of online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, said mail handler Aukushan Scantlebury, 47.

When DeJoy restricted overtime two months ago, Scantlebury and other workers saw their schedules cut back to five days per week. Within days, he said, the facility was in chaos.

Packages piled up, blocking the aisles and the heavy sorting machinery. Boxes of steaks, fruit and other perishables rotted. Rats dashed across the floor. At one point, Scantlebury said, the “whole building was filled with gnats.”

The delays were particularly tragic for live animals, including baby chickens and crickets, that are transported through the U.S. Postal Service. Usually, mail handlers say, they can hear the birds peeping and rustling around in their boxes.

This month, one worker said, she found a box with air holes in a pile of packages. Instead of hearing the gentle sounds of baby chicks, she heard nothing.
Workers sometimes see shipments of crickets jumping around inside their packaging, said Eddie Cowan, a mail handler and the president of a local chapter of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Now, he said, “you can see in the packages those crickets are dead.”


Sumi Ali, the co-owner of the Yes Plz coffee subscription company, arrived July 25 to mail a batch of freshly roasted beans to customers. A frequent visitor to the complex, he was shocked at what he saw.

The parking lot was crammed with semi trailers piled high with unsorted mail; the warehouse-like facility was packed “wall to wall” with mail; and there were very few employees in sight.

“It was like Armageddon,” Ali said. “It was a total maze. You could not walk through the facility without having to move things out of your way. I don’t know how they got forklifts through there. There were only inches of space between containers.”

Since then, Ali said, the backlog of packages seems to have improved a little. But, he said, the chaos continues to be as bad, if not worse, than the usual holiday season.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Wednesday that DeJoy informed her he did not intend to restore the sorting machines or blue mailboxes that have been removed in several cities, nor did he have plans to allow for adequate overtime for workers.

As for the November election — the spark that ignited a national firestorm over USPS cutbacks — postal service and California elections officials say there’s less concern here than in other states.

USPS spokesman David Partenheimer did not comment on the reductions, but referred to a statement from DeJoy that said the postal service is equipped to fully handle election mail this fall.

The postal service also said DeJoy was expanding a task force to strengthen coordination with election officials to handle mail-in ballots. The postal service had earlier warned 46 states, including California, that some ballots might not be delivered in time to be counted.

In June, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring that all ballots postmarked by election day and delivered by Nov. 20 be counted — five times longer than California’s normal grace period. Still, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said the concerns raised in other states merit close scrutiny.

“Given this administration’s track record with the truth, seeing is believing,” Padilla said in a written statement. “My office will continue constant communication with the U.S. Postal Service, and will continue to monitor for any signs of disruption to service.”

At the Santa Clarita processing and distribution center, two delivery bar code sorters were padlocked and gutted of their cameras and computers in July so that workers couldn’t plug them in and start using them again.

For an unknown reason, the devices came back online Wednesday, but a third delivery bar code sorter was missing from the facility, according to a worker who did not want to be named because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency.

Merchant Stephen Tu of Pasadena said in the past two months he has noticed his first-class packages have been getting stuck for as many as 10 days in the Santa Clarita facility, whereas normally they would pass through in one day. Tu, who tracks shipments of baby clothing and accessories he sells on EBay and Facebook Marketplace, said he’s never endured delays this long — up to 20 days for packages sent outside Southern California — in the 15 years he has been selling items online.

Tu said his customers sometimes ask him whether he has even shipped their goods at all. In order to guarantee on-time deliveries, he said, he’s considering switching to private services like FedEx and UPS.

About six weeks ago on a Wednesday morning, postal clerk Kenny Diaz, 35, showed up to work at the Tehachapi post office and saw something new in his nine years on the job: a plastic tub full of mail that should have gone out for delivery the night before.

Every afternoon, Diaz said, a truck driver picked up the post office’s outgoing mail and took it to a processing facility in Bakersfield. If the post office was running behind, the last driver of the day would wait to pick up every bill, package and letter, he said.

“They always waited — they always waited,” Diaz said. “Our No. 1 priority is getting the mail where it has to go. We’d rather delay the truck by two hours than delay the mail by a whole day.”

Now, Diaz said, the truck drivers have been instructed to leave on time, regardless of whether all the outgoing mail is on the truck. That means some mail is arriving a day later at the processing facility, where it could be delayed again, he said.

“Just think of our little town, times a million across the nation,” Diaz said. “You can see the domino effect that it’s going to have.”


 
 
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I feel obliged to contribute to this thread and story in general. Both my parents are life long USPS workers. My step-dad was president of the WA state postal workers union for a long time (mail handlers, not letter carriers). Full disclosure, I'm pretty much a bleeding heart liberal. 

This entire fiasco looks like a non-story to me. It's a lot of noise stemming from paranoia in my opinion. I've been voting by mail in WA state for so long that I don't know how many years its been. There's never been any talk about it being fraudulent and I think any talk about that now is just conspiracy theory run amok. I think our president is generally a dirtbag, but we're wasting our time with this story. I'm watching the Dejoy hearing right now. He comes off as completely honest and reputable. Several of the (D) senators don't. They're grandstanding, and it's embarrassing. Demanding "yes or no" answers to complex questions is just silly. They look so partisan its pathetic. Every time they mention some disabled vet and their medication I cringe. Both Romney and Paul were being reasonable in their line of questioning. 

Dejoy isn't trying to dismantle the postal service. He's facing the reality that all the post master generals have faced since the advent of the internet. Ask yourself, when's the last time you had to rely on mailing a letter using a blue box? When's the last time you sent someone a letter via email as opposed to sending a hand written letter? 

I don't have a problem with taking steps to make the post office more efficient. We don't need delivery 6 days a week. It's reasonable to understand that the the postal work force is being slowly lowered in numbers over time. I fully get that unneeded machinery is being removed.  That said, I think it's fair to assume the post office shouldn't be running at a profit. In order run at a profit you're going to have to raise the cost of a first class stamp a ton. Go to UPS or FEDEX and ask them to hand deliver a letter across the country in three days. How much is that going to cost you?

Watching both sides of the aisle position themselves so they can claim skulduggery after the election is just lame. 

 
I feel obliged to contribute to this thread and story in general. Both my parents are life long USPS workers. My step-dad was president of the WA state postal workers union for a long time (mail handlers, not letter carriers). Full disclosure, I'm pretty much a bleeding heart liberal. 

This entire fiasco looks like a non-story to me. It's a lot of noise stemming from paranoia in my opinion. I've been voting by mail in WA state for so long that I don't know how many years its been. There's never been any talk about it being fraudulent and I think any talk about that now is just conspiracy theory run amok. I think our president is generally a dirtbag, but we're wasting our time with this story. I'm watching the Dejoy hearing right now. He comes off as completely honest and reputable. Several of the (D) senators don't. They're grandstanding, and it's embarrassing. Demanding "yes or no" answers to complex questions is just silly. They look so partisan its pathetic. Every time they mention some disabled vet and their medication I cringe. Both Romney and Paul were being reasonable in their line of questioning. 

Dejoy isn't trying to dismantle the postal service. He's facing the reality that all the post master generals have faced since the advent of the internet. Ask yourself, when's the last time you had to rely on mailing a letter using a blue box? When's the last time you sent someone a letter via email as opposed to sending a hand written letter? 

I don't have a problem with taking steps to make the post office more efficient. We don't need delivery 6 days a week. It's reasonable to understand that the the postal work force is being slowly lowered in numbers over time. I fully get that unneeded machinery is being removed.  That said, I think it's fair to assume the post office shouldn't be running at a profit. In order run at a profit you're going to have to raise the cost of a first class stamp a ton. Go to UPS or FEDEX and ask them to hand deliver a letter across the country in three days. How much is that going to cost you?

Watching both sides of the aisle position themselves so they can claim skulduggery after the election is just lame. 
Understood. The timing is what is suspect though. Why dismantle sorting machines, eliminate overtime, etc. now, during the pandemic, when mail has become more important than before it? Why just a couple of months before the election? Amidst all of Donald Trump's talk about mail-in voting being fraudulent? Is all of that timing just a coincidence, like now is the best time to be making these changes at USPS? None of which were underway before the pandemic? I do appreciate your thoughts, I honestly don't know a lot about it. To the lay person, the timing of all of this is strangely coincidental, or frankly not. 

 
I feel obliged to contribute to this thread and story in general. Both my parents are life long USPS workers. My step-dad was president of the WA state postal workers union for a long time (mail handlers, not letter carriers). Full disclosure, I'm pretty much a bleeding heart liberal. 

This entire fiasco looks like a non-story to me. It's a lot of noise stemming from paranoia in my opinion. I've been voting by mail in WA state for so long that I don't know how many years its been. There's never been any talk about it being fraudulent and I think any talk about that now is just conspiracy theory run amok. I think our president is generally a dirtbag, but we're wasting our time with this story. I'm watching the Dejoy hearing right now. He comes off as completely honest and reputable. Several of the (D) senators don't. They're grandstanding, and it's embarrassing. Demanding "yes or no" answers to complex questions is just silly. They look so partisan its pathetic. Every time they mention some disabled vet and their medication I cringe. Both Romney and Paul were being reasonable in their line of questioning. 

Dejoy isn't trying to dismantle the postal service. He's facing the reality that all the post master generals have faced since the advent of the internet. Ask yourself, when's the last time you had to rely on mailing a letter using a blue box? When's the last time you sent someone a letter via email as opposed to sending a hand written letter? 

I don't have a problem with taking steps to make the post office more efficient. We don't need delivery 6 days a week. It's reasonable to understand that the the postal work force is being slowly lowered in numbers over time. I fully get that unneeded machinery is being removed.  That said, I think it's fair to assume the post office shouldn't be running at a profit. In order run at a profit you're going to have to raise the cost of a first class stamp a ton. Go to UPS or FEDEX and ask them to hand deliver a letter across the country in three days. How much is that going to cost you?

Watching both sides of the aisle position themselves so they can claim skulduggery after the election is just lame. 
No doubt.  I don't see it.  I see a highly competent, senior  executive from XPO logistics thinking about how to reform the post office.  This guy is about as qualified for this position as you can get.  

Though one bright spot of this hearing is we got this little nugget.   :lmao:   Gotta say I've been there and probably reacted exactly the same.  Poor guy had his mic come on right at the perfect time.

 
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Understood. The timing is what is suspect though. Why dismantle sorting machines, eliminate overtime, etc. now, during the pandemic, when mail has become more important than before it? Why just a couple of months before the election? Amidst all of Donald Trump's talk about mail-in voting being fraudulent? Is all of that timing just a coincidence, like now is the best time to be making these changes at USPS? None of which were underway before the pandemic? I do appreciate your thoughts, I honestly don't know a lot about it. To the lay person, the timing of all of this is strangely coincidental, or frankly not. 
H'es been in that position 60 days.  New guy comes in with a darn good idea of how to improve things at the PO and starts implementing them.  Totally normal.

Actually, now having heard him and seeing the expertise he brings, it looks like the post office is in better hands than it has in a long time.

 
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I feel obliged to contribute to this thread and story in general. Both my parents are life long USPS workers. My step-dad was president of the WA state postal workers union for a long time (mail handlers, not letter carriers). Full disclosure, I'm pretty much a bleeding heart liberal. 

This entire fiasco looks like a non-story to me. It's a lot of noise stemming from paranoia in my opinion. I've been voting by mail in WA state for so long that I don't know how many years its been. There's never been any talk about it being fraudulent and I think any talk about that now is just conspiracy theory run amok. I think our president is generally a dirtbag, but we're wasting our time with this story. I'm watching the Dejoy hearing right now. He comes off as completely honest and reputable. Several of the (D) senators don't. They're grandstanding, and it's embarrassing. Demanding "yes or no" answers to complex questions is just silly. They look so partisan its pathetic. Every time they mention some disabled vet and their medication I cringe. Both Romney and Paul were being reasonable in their line of questioning. 

Dejoy isn't trying to dismantle the postal service. He's facing the reality that all the post master generals have faced since the advent of the internet. Ask yourself, when's the last time you had to rely on mailing a letter using a blue box? When's the last time you sent someone a letter via email as opposed to sending a hand written letter? 

I don't have a problem with taking steps to make the post office more efficient. We don't need delivery 6 days a week. It's reasonable to understand that the the postal work force is being slowly lowered in numbers over time. I fully get that unneeded machinery is being removed.  That said, I think it's fair to assume the post office shouldn't be running at a profit. In order run at a profit you're going to have to raise the cost of a first class stamp a ton. Go to UPS or FEDEX and ask them to hand deliver a letter across the country in three days. How much is that going to cost you?

Watching both sides of the aisle position themselves so they can claim skulduggery after the election is just lame. 
There's definitely a legitimate, rational policy argument to be had. There are problems though that are at the root of all this.

  • Trump's own statements. He has fed a lot of the controversy by 1. withholding money, and 2. his direct statements attacking the legitimacy of elections and his open declaration that he does not in fact personally want the USPS to do its job.
  • The appointment of DeJoy specifically - he was an RNC Finance co-chairman. Other co-chairs have included Broidy, Wynn and Cohen. DeJoy is the fourth. Corruption issues aside he's a sheer partisan, literally a major fundraiser and party director, and he was put into a strictly non-partisan job.
  • Timing, timing, timing. I understand some of these policies may have been in the works for a while but someone has to just be incompetent to implement these things, right now before an election and at this juncture of American history.
  • Failures are indeed happening. The reports about delayed medicines, ag products going wasted, mail taking 3 weeks when it used to take 1 and 8 days when it used to take 2, are all real. We've seen it ourselves in our neighborhood. Changing postal workers, misdeliveries, it's been our own doorstep and other people share similar stories. 
Somewhere beyond all that, there's a discussion about postal policies and efficiencies.

 
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The electronic/digital world has created some perception issues. Not everyone lives on their phone. If there's some elderly woman who lives in an apartment building with no elevator who walks down to the corner to mail her electric bill in a blue box, let her.

 
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Understood. The timing is what is suspect though.
No. It's not. It's selective reporting. I just watched (on fox) the hearing and they were showing pictures of tons of blue mail boxes piled up as if they were recently gathered. They've been taking those down for years. They've been removing sorting machines for years. I just talked to my insanely liberal step dad (postal workers union president) and he even told me its a non-story. 

 
I don't have a problem with trying to get the USPS back on track.  I also appreciate that the Postmaster General has decided to defer the changes until after the election to avoid the perception that he's doing what the President says he wants done.  Context is everything with this issue.  Fact is, the post office has been in trouble for a long time, and from what I've read, the largest chunk of that problem is the pension plan and what's required to keep it funded.  Another fact is, the President has made it clear what he wants to do and why he wants to do it.  That can't be dismissed, especially now, after we've learned that he actually want to do and believes the stupid #### he says.  I get dismissing it as "noise" if this would have happened early on.  The last fact that seems important here is the timing...if this is such a huge issue as claimed, wouldn't it have been at the forefront of things he wanted to change?  The timing, Trump's words and his previous actions all play a large role in this fiasco.  They can't be overlooked.  With all that said, I'm willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt even though he was a huge Trump donor and cheerleader.  His actions in this will definitely speak louder than his words.  We'll see.  I'm not as concerned with the mailbox locations...what's curious to me is the cutting in funding and equipment to do the job of actually moving the mail in a timely manner.  That seems ill-advised knowing there's going to be a significant pick up in volume in the next few months.  Couple that with the inability to get people to work for the USPS and it seems like a recipe for disaster.

 
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What is disconcerting to me is the public is losing confidence in the USPS.  That will cause revenue problems to get worse more quickly.  I don't think this can be understated.

 
Are any metrics being tracked for delivery times, for regular delivery, priority, etc? Something like what the airlines have?

I've been having long delivery times for sending stuff to my daughter in LA, include some vegan queso that's been "in transit" for 3 weeks.  But that's just another anecdote. 

 
No. It's not. It's selective reporting. I just watched (on fox) the hearing and they were showing pictures of tons of blue mail boxes piled up as if they were recently gathered. They've been taking those down for years. They've been removing sorting machines for years. I just talked to my insanely liberal step dad (postal workers union president) and he even told me its a non-story. 
Mail volume peaked in 2000 and has been roughly cut in half since.  These reductions in machinery make perfect sense.

 
Are any metrics being tracked for delivery times, for regular delivery, priority, etc? Something like what the airlines have?
In his testimony DeJoy noted that delivery times are getting better as he has evened out the bottlenecks in the system.  I don't remember numbers, but it's in his testimony from today.

 
In his testimony DeJoy noted that delivery times are getting better as he has evened out the bottlenecks in the system.  I don't remember numbers, but it's in his testimony from today.
Did he say a time frame? Like getting better from when?

 
Dejoy isn't trying to dismantle the postal service. He's facing the reality that all the post master generals have faced since the advent of the internet. Ask yourself, when's the last time you had to rely on mailing a letter using a blue box? When's the last time you sent someone a letter via email as opposed to sending a hand written letter? 
I appreciate your perspective, and I've not opined in on the post office stuff because I've also wondered how much of this stuff is normal and been planned for far in advance. Kind of like when executives sell stock, and there is outrage, when in reality many (most?) executive stock sales are planned months in advance.  

But I totally disagree with this part quoted above. The idea that because posters at FBG (largely white male demographic, educated, planning on our CPUs) don't use the post office often isn't a fair representation of how important the USPS is for 10s of millions of Americans who rely on it daily.

 
But I totally disagree with this part quoted above. The idea that because posters at FBG (largely white male demographic, educated, planning on our CPUs) don't use the post office often isn't a fair representation of how important the USPS is for 10s of millions of Americans who rely on it daily.
This may be true now, but (IMO) it won't be in 10-20 years.  Mail volume will continue to creep downward.  With 5G, Starlink, etc. electronic access will continue to push even into those populations that don't use it now (and many of those folks who don't use electronic communications are elderly and won't be around down the road).

Planning for the decumulation stage in life (i.e. retirement) for one person is a terribly complicated problem.  Planning for it in an organization as big as the USPS is truly daunting.

 
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The timing of the changes is also referring to the timing of changing to the guy in charge now, not just the tactical changes. Not just the dismantling of machines, the removal of boxes, the removal of overtime, the delivery time slowdown, , medications not arriving on time and the elections being right around the corner.

Why was the new guy brought in right now?

Why were the changes needed right now?

Even though we all know the common refrain of "these changes to the post office were needed", again why right now?

Why does it coincide with Trump saying he was doing all this so "they couldn't have universal mail-in" after saying that mail-in voting favors Democrats?

Why is the new guy in charge the right guy? He has investments in a number of USPS competitors.

Some of the arguments being put forth is really not seeing the forest through the trees. "Nothing to see here, just routine post-officy type stuff happening, settle down." Nope, sorry that's not cutting it.  

 
The problem I see is just how this relates to voting this fall.

Yes it does make sense that as the USPS mail service demand shrink they would make changes like removing sorting machines, drop boxes etc.

However it should be painfully obvious that mail-in voting was going to be necessary this fall.

Instead of saying it’s a disaster and won’t work. The president / government should have been working on a solution for ballots in the mail this fall. They have had months and months to come up with solutions. This should be important, this should have had people figuring out how to make it work. Every state should already have a good mail-in voting system in place.

Trump ADMITTED out loud that mail-in doesn’t work well for him and republicans (I have read this might not even be the case).

This is why people are pissed. This is why the post master general dude had to testify in front on Congress. This is how it works, this is how it should work.

Just like many things Trump caused all this #### by talking. 

 
Exactly General.  The weird part is that in a well functioning democracy the new Postmaster General and the POTUS should be talking about all of the ways they are bracing for what should be a massive wave of mail in the next two months - setting up new boxes....additional sorting systems being temporarily brought online, etc.

Our antiquated voting system is a national embarrassment.  Long polling lines in highly populated areas should bother every American.  Worrying about mail in ballots being delivered on time is ridiculous in 2020.  🤬

 
Why were the changes needed right now?

Even though we all know the common refrain of "these changes to the post office were needed", again why right now?
So sorting machines were removed 3 weeks before the election in 2012, 2 weeks before the election in 2008, and 1 week before the election in 2000.

So, these aren't changes.  They're situation normal.

Our antiquated voting system is a national embarrassment.  Long polling lines in highly populated areas should bother every American.  
Our pen and paper system is the most secure way of balloting.  The most important part of an election is confidence in the validity of the results.  There is nothing wrong with "antiquated" if it works.

As far as long polling lines, those are the province of the states.  If they Philly has long polling lines the state of PA needs to get their act together and fix it.

 
So sorting machines were removed 3 weeks before the election in 2012, 2 weeks before the election in 2008, and 1 week before the election in 2000.

So, these aren't changes.  They're situation normal.

Our pen and paper system is the most secure way of balloting.  The most important part of an election is confidence in the validity of the results.  There is nothing wrong with "antiquated" if it works.

As far as long polling lines, those are the province of the states.  If they Philly has long polling lines the state of PA needs to get their act together and fix it.
It’s not enough to just say “PA needs to fix it”.  Under allocation of resources for polls in high density areas is essentially burdening one of the fundamental rights of Americans. It should outrage people on both sides of the aisle, but of course it doesn’t because of politics.  
We need federal action to fix this mess. Hopefully a Biden administration will move early on voting reforms. 

 
Our pen and paper system is the most secure way of balloting. 
Not saying it doesn't exist, but I am unaware of a single place that uses "pen and paper" anymore.  All the current voting methods have the same potential pitfalls of mail in voting.  The difference being the current "polling place" voting has a much larger breadth of potential issues should a single individual try and corrupt things.  It's become clearer and clearer to me that people really don't think twice about all the various opportunities available to a bad actor in our current system.  If people would stop and think about the process for 30 seconds they'd realize how fragile our current process really is.  Good news is vote by mail doesn't add or detract from that current state of fragility in any meaningful way.  

 
Why can't folks follow masks, social distancing at in person-polls?  Open them earlier if lines are a concern.  Seems like a nothing burger.

 
So sorting machines were removed 3 weeks before the election in 2012, 2 weeks before the election in 2008, and 1 week before the election in 2000.

So, these aren't changes.  They're situation normal.

Our pen and paper system is the most secure way of balloting.  The most important part of an election is confidence in the validity of the results.  There is nothing wrong with "antiquated" if it works.

As far as long polling lines, those are the province of the states.  If they Philly has long polling lines the state of PA needs to get their act together and fix it.
States should absolutely have their voting figured out better. Lining up to vote for hours on one day in the midweek is pretty dumb.

The President of the freaking country should also not be actively undermining the process by telling people mail-In is a fraud and an attempt to steal the election, etc.

Just another daily reminder that he is a conman and only cares about his re-election. He is at least transparent about it mostly because there is seemingly no repercussions when he says the things around that he shouldn’t. 

 
Even Mitch Freakin McConnell gets this right

A Trump created issue to divide and give himself and excuse if he loses. This is one of his go to moves. He’s got like 5.

Nothing is ever his fault, blame the other group first.

If you are doing something accuse the other side of it first.

He’s trying the birther stuff on Kamala for Pete’s sake  :lol:

He’s got his nicknames. 

Use the words “strong” and “powerful” to describe everything even if it makes no sense or sounds odd.

He’s nothing if not predictable.

 
Not saying it doesn't exist, but I am unaware of a single place that uses "pen and paper" anymore.  
Mine uses Scantron.  

  Good news is vote by mail doesn't add or detract from that current state of fragility in any meaningful way.  
Security is "checking your signature" as oppressed to checking an ID.  The chances for large and small scale issues is much higher with mail in.  Much higher than in person and absentee. 

It’s not enough to just say “PA needs to fix it”.  
Administration of voting is a state function.  

 
Mine uses Scantron.  

Security is "checking your signature" as oppressed to checking an ID.  The chances for large and small scale issues is much higher with mail in.  Much higher than in person and absentee. 

Administration of voting is a state function.  
Is there any evidence this is true?

 
Security is "checking your signature" as oppressed to checking an ID.  The chances for large and small scale issues is much higher with mail in.  Much higher than in person and absentee. 
Because fake ids don't exist?  To be clear,  in the current process,  identity is the least of your worries. 

 
And nevermind on the pen/paper thing sand.....i thought you were saying it was all done via pen paper (no computers involved )  

 
Mine uses Scantron.  

Security is "checking your signature" as oppressed to checking an ID.  The chances for large and small scale issues is much higher with mail in.  Much higher than in person and absentee. 

Administration of voting is a state function.  
What is the difference between mail in and absentee? In Michigan last year (pre pandemic) everyone was sent an application for a mail in ballot. My wife and I filled it out and sent it back, now we get our ballots sent to my house, I fill it out, I drop it off (polling location isn’t far away). Am I to believe that somewhere along this process my vote is being usurped? How/where is the fraud happening? What is in the absentee process that makes it more secure? What are these large and small scale issues with mail-in ballots? 

 
Why can't folks follow masks, social distancing at in person-polls?  Open them earlier if lines are a concern.  Seems like a nothing burger.
I tend to agree, but it’s because I don’t want my vote questioned. Or not counted, which is what would happen if he had his way. So I’ll mask up and social distance with hand sanitizer to make sure. Is it the most safe? No. Is he seeking to take advantage and cheat? Of course.

But every possible in person option needs to be available to accommodate foot traffic. Lines that are miles long in “certain areas” will be the next fight. Here’s a hint it will be areas in swing states that “lean a certain way”. Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Miami-Dade, Las Vegas, Phoenix we’re looking at you.

He would and will cheat to win this thing. Defend his position on whether he’s expanding or suppressing voting access. In a pandemic? It’s disgusting. 

 
What is the difference between mail in and absentee? In Michigan last year (pre pandemic) everyone was sent an application for a mail in ballot. My wife and I filled it out and sent it back, now we get our ballots sent to my house, I fill it out, I drop it off (polling location isn’t far away). Am I to believe that somewhere along this process my vote is being usurped? How/where is the fraud happening? What is in the absentee process that makes it more secure? What are these large and small scale issues with mail-in ballots? 
There isn't.  This new boogeyman is one that's been used by people for decades.  In some states you're only allowed to get an absentee ballot for specific reasons, but that's it.  I believe there are two states who are mass sending ballots to everyone though.  Not sure that's a good idea.  I don't know how you verify the individual in that case.  Everywhere else, there's as much "validation" via mail as there is in person...it's simply in different form.

 
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I’ve voted in three different precincts over the last 21 years in NYC.

Always pen and paper.
Wow... really?  How does it work exactly?
Check in, they ask what block you’re on and you get sent to a specific table. Then you provide your full name and full address. No ID ever requested. They hand you the ballot and you go to a booth that is closed on three sides. Fill in the circles, go to another line to Scan the sheet(s.)

:shrug:

In Michigan - we used voting machines. You flipped tabs. But if you didn’t feel like flipping 40-50 levers you could just pull flip the party lever at the top and vote straight ticket. There was a huge lever that closed your curtain and after you were done you pulled it the other way and it opened the curtain.

I’ve voted 6 times in NY General elections (& another 15-20 times in off years, special elections, primaries, runoffs), 5 general elections in Michigan. I have a strong preference for the former voting procedures.

 
There isn't.  This new boogeyman is one that's been used by people for decades.  In some states you're only allowed to get an absentee ballot for specific reasons, but that's it.  I believe there are two states who are mass sending ballots to everyone though.  Not sure that's a good idea.  I don't know how you verify the individual in that case.  Everywhere else, there's as much "validation" via mail as there is in person...it's simply in different form.
I know this, but I’d like to hear what I might be missing. Apparently not much. 

 
What is the difference between mail in and absentee?
There is no difference.

Conservatives are attempting to create a talking point by making a distinction between "people who are unable to vote in person" (i.e., "absentee") and "people who could vote in person" (i.e., "mail in"), thus arguing that only absentee people should be permitted to vote by mail.

But both groups of people are functionally the same.

 
No. It's not. It's selective reporting. I just watched (on fox) the hearing and they were showing pictures of tons of blue mail boxes piled up as if they were recently gathered. They've been taking those down for years. They've been removing sorting machines for years. I just talked to my insanely liberal step dad (postal workers union president) and he even told me its a non-story. 
That's great to hear and the problem with having someone in the WH that lies constantly. You never know what to believe. 

 
Check in, they ask what block you’re on and you get sent to a specific table. Then you provide your full name and full address. No ID ever requested. They hand you the ballot and you go to a booth that is closed on three sides. Fill in the circles, go to another line to Scan the sheet(s.)

:shrug:

In Michigan - we used voting machines. You flipped tabs. But if you didn’t feel like flipping 40-50 levers you could just pull flip the party lever at the top and vote straight ticket. There was a huge lever that closed your curtain and after you were done you pulled it the other way and it opened the curtain.

I’ve voted 6 times in NY General elections (& another 15-20 times in off years, special elections, primaries, runoffs), 5 general elections in Michigan. I have a strong preference for the former voting procedures.
And then scanned into a local results machine to be batched and sent to elections office correct?  I follow...I was thinking of an even simpler time.  The method you and Sand are talking about isn't what I was thinking of.  The user input might be "pen and paper" but everything beyond that is computer driven and has the same potential issues as every other method we have today.  So I disagree with Sand that "Our pen and paper system is the most secure way of balloting"...though he does say "balloting" and not "voting" so I guess I'm not sure exactly what he's saying.  How we provide our input to the system is the least of our concerns in the chain IMO.

 
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That's great to hear and the problem with having someone in the WH that lies constantly. You never know what to believe. 
Exactly.

The president of the country says that mail-in voting doesn’t “go well” for him or republicans.

Then a month later starts talking non-stop about how mail-in voting is going to steal the election and it is a fraudulent.

How do people not react to this?

Of course there should be public discussion and people need to go on the record. 

Trump created this issue. It’s not like he’s the drunk uncle at the picnic. When he says crazy stuff it is kind of important. 

 
 The House can pass whatever bills it feels like, to no effect whatsoever.
Wait, I just read that Senate Republicans aren’t going to take up the bill, and that the President said he would veto it.

Why is that? What is the reasoning behind impeding the post office during a pandemic when people are relying on it for medications to be delivered, social security checks, etc.?

 
I feel obliged to contribute to this thread and story in general. Both my parents are life long USPS workers. My step-dad was president of the WA state postal workers union for a long time (mail handlers, not letter carriers). Full disclosure, I'm pretty much a bleeding heart liberal. 

This entire fiasco looks like a non-story to me. It's a lot of noise stemming from paranoia in my opinion. I've been voting by mail in WA state for so long that I don't know how many years its been. There's never been any talk about it being fraudulent and I think any talk about that now is just conspiracy theory run amok. I think our president is generally a dirtbag, but we're wasting our time with this story. I'm watching the Dejoy hearing right now. He comes off as completely honest and reputable. Several of the (D) senators don't. They're grandstanding, and it's embarrassing. Demanding "yes or no" answers to complex questions is just silly. They look so partisan its pathetic. Every time they mention some disabled vet and their medication I cringe. Both Romney and Paul were being reasonable in their line of questioning. 

Dejoy isn't trying to dismantle the postal service. He's facing the reality that all the post master generals have faced since the advent of the internet. Ask yourself, when's the last time you had to rely on mailing a letter using a blue box? When's the last time you sent someone a letter via email as opposed to sending a hand written letter? 

I don't have a problem with taking steps to make the post office more efficient. We don't need delivery 6 days a week. It's reasonable to understand that the the postal work force is being slowly lowered in numbers over time. I fully get that unneeded machinery is being removed.  That said, I think it's fair to assume the post office shouldn't be running at a profit. In order run at a profit you're going to have to raise the cost of a first class stamp a ton. Go to UPS or FEDEX and ask them to hand deliver a letter across the country in three days. How much is that going to cost you?

Watching both sides of the aisle position themselves so they can claim skulduggery after the election is just lame. 
:goodposting:

I believe that the Post Office was profitable until they were required to pre-fund their pension program, circa 2006.

What really should piss people off is that the House came back for an emergency session to vote on funding for the Post Office instead of working with the White House on another round of stimulus.  It's even more preposterous when the Post Office has $14B in cash and has funding through August 2021 and they still have $10B in Cares Act Funds they can tap into, if necessary. 

 
There is no difference.

Conservatives are attempting to create a talking point by making a distinction between "people who are unable to vote in person" (i.e., "absentee") and "people who could vote in person" (i.e., "mail in"), thus arguing that only absentee people should be permitted to vote by mail.

But both groups of people are functionally the same.
The difference between requesting a ballot to vote absentee and mass mailing ballots to everyone on the voter registry without the request is huge.  

 
Snotbubbles said:
[scooter] said:
There is no difference.

Conservatives are attempting to create a talking point by making a distinction between "people who are unable to vote in person" (i.e., "absentee") and "people who could vote in person" (i.e., "mail in"), thus arguing that only absentee people should be permitted to vote by mail.

But both groups of people are functionally the same.
The difference between requesting a ballot to vote absentee and mass mailing ballots to everyone on the voter registry without the request is huge.  
It's a difference in quantity, not a difference in substance.

 

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