the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the postal service for the Presidential
Election. It is a problem which we face here in Canada, as well. The postal
service is crumbling under the weight of Internet business. It is a legacy
business, meant to forward paper, and is finding it difficult to shift to parcels...
* * *
source: LaPresse Posted on August 3, 2020
author: Richard Hétu
translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise
Overview: the real danger of postal voting
Over the past 20 years, more than 250 million votes have been cast by mail in the United States.
(NEW YORK) Last Thursday, in the midst of his funeral oration for John Lewis, hero of the civil rights movement, Barack Obama began to enumerate the means used by "those in power" to discourage people from going put to vote. At the end of his list, he denounced "the work of undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election which will depend on the postal vote so that people do not get sick".
Is the former Democratic President more credible than Donald Trump on the issue of postal voting? On the same day, his successor said that this method of voting risked not only massive fraud, but also unacceptable delays.
"We need to know the results of the election on election night, not days, months or even years later," he tweeted late in the afternoon, a few hours after mentioning the postponement of the presidential election.
So what's the biggest danger with postal voting? The one that Barack Obama apprehends by decrying the programmed deterioration of the American Postal Service or the one that Donald Trump describes by raising the specter of fraud and delays? Before answering this question at the request of La Presse , James O'Rourke, professor of management at Notre-Dame University, feels the need to clarify the following.
“I've been interested in everything related to the US Postal Service for 20 years,” he says over the phone. “And until yesterday, I have always scrupulously maintained the greatest objectivity on the subject. What mattered to me was the functioning of the Postal Service, its financial structure, the appointment of its regulatory council, etc. I abandoned this attitude yesterday because I saw that issues of finance and governance were being eclipsed by political issues. "
Delays of several days
The “yesterday” that James O'Rourke talks about was July 30. That day, Donald Trump outraged him by formulating what he describes as “baseless allegations” about postal voting in order to justify the hypothesis of a postponement of the presidential election. The data collected by a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) supports his judgment. Over the past 20 years, more than 250 million votes have been cast by mail in the United States. However, only 143 convictions for fraud resulted from these votes. This equates to about one case per state every six or seven years, or a fraud rate of 0.00006%.
The management professor was shocked by another aspect last Thursday. While reading the Washington Post , he learned that the newly-appointed general manager of the Postal Service, Louis DeJoy, had approved, on July 13, new procedures which have the effect of causing delays of several days in the delivery of mail. Officially, these procedures were adopted to reduce the costs for an agency that is drowning in annual deficits. Currently, Service employees fear that the procedures will hamper their ability to deliver postal ballots on time for the November ballot.
According to the new procedures, letter carriers are to do what they have never had to do in 275 years of service. If they do not manage to finish their journey at the end of their shift, they must return the undelivered mail to the sorting centers, where it will be taken care of the next day. Any overtime is prohibited.
“It's not the only change of its kind,” he adds. You can see a pattern of behavior that aims to weaken and dismantle the Postal Service by ending its efficiency. "
The Conservatives' fight against the Postal Service, an independent federal agency they want to privatize, is not new. But it has taken a turn as partisan as it is ideological since the appointment of Louis DeJoy as head of the Postal Service last May.
A political ally
North Carolina businessman and logistics specialist Louis DeJoy is a major fundraiser in the Republican Party and a donor to Donald Trump. Prior to being appointed to this post, he was in charge of fundraising for the Republican Convention in Charlotte.
The appointment of this ally of the president came at a time when 46 of the 50 U.S. states have expanded access to postal voting due to the pandemic, and where 70% of November's vote could be cast by mail, compared to to 26% in 2016, according to experts.
“What I would say today is that the CEO of the Postal Service has one of the most important positions in the country,” says Professor O'Rourke. This has rarely been the case in the past. And I would say now is not the time to choose a political friend of the president who will only obey his orders rather than bring an honest and independent vision. "
This president has already called the Postal Service a “farce”. His hostility towards this popular agency with the general public is no stranger to the personal vendetta he is waging against Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post . The President refuses any additional financial support to the Postal Service as long as it does not increase the prices of the parcels it distributes by 400%. Experts see the White House chief's request as an attempt to make Amazon and Jeff Bezos pay for the negative articles the Post publishes on his policies.
These same experts believe that the Postal Service would be the big loser of such a large increase. According to them, such an increase would end up playing into the hands of the main private delivery services, in this case FedEx, UPS and… Amazon.
However, in the short term, it is American democracy itself that is threatened by the lack of means made available to the Postal Service to cope with the announced avalanche of postal ballots, according to James O'Rourke.
“I am a retired Air Force colonel who has been teaching at Notre-Dame University for 30 years. I can't wait to reunite with my students. But, for the first time in a very long time, I am deeply worried about my nation, ”says the management professor.
Barack Obama shares the same concern.
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