Citing a number of postal personnel and union leaders, the Write-up documented that areas of the state are enduring at minimum a two-working day delay in acquiring mail, including for convey mail, as a end result of the US Postal Service’s new policies.
The recent backlog is worsening to the stage where by staff dread they will never be capable to identify all voters’ ballots in time for them to be processed, the newspaper noted.
The new treatments for the USPS were being laid out in a memo previously this thirty day period and appear underneath the leadership of Postmaster Common Louis DeJoy, a longtime Donald Trump supporter and fundraiser, who stepped into his job in June.
In a assertion to CNN Thursday, the USPS acknowledged some “momentary services impacts” from the new variations but disputed concerns that its cost slicing and effectiveness measures set in location by DeJoy will interfere with well timed shipping of mail-in votes.
“To be clear nonetheless, and regardless of any assertions to the opposite, we are not slowing down Election Mail or any other mail. Instead, we continue to utilize a sturdy and confirmed course of action to make certain good managing of all Election Mail constant with our standards,” USPS spokesperson David Partenheimer reported.
The new policies include hours being cut back inside the US Postal Company, in accordance to the memo received by CNN that shows talking points specified to USPS supervisors across the nation on July 10.
In accordance to the memo, time beyond regulation, which include late excursions and extra journeys by USPS staff, is no for a longer period approved or approved. This is defined as a expense slicing measure that could conserve the economically struggling USPS all around $200 million.
“One particular component of these adjustments that could be difficult for personnel is that, quickly — we may well see mail remaining at the rear of or mail on the workroom floor or docks … which is not common,” reads the memo.
The memo states any mail left guiding will be documented with the “root brings about” of the delays addressed the next working day, with the intention of the volume of delayed mail shrinking around time, but the fact of that continues to be unclear as the adjustments are new.
Partenheimer claimed in the statement that any “such impacts will be monitored and short term as the root triggers of any troubles will be dealt with as necessary and corrected as suitable.”
He went on to say that DeJoy is not beholden to the influence of Trump and that the “notion that the Postmaster Normal can make selections regarding the Postal Provider at the way of the President is wholly misplaced and off-foundation.”
“Even though the USPS is able to fund its operating fees without having extra borrowing at this time, we are happy to have arrived at an agreement on the product terms and circumstances of a bank loan, should really the have to have come up,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin mentioned in a statement.
“If the funding would not come by, all the things we do, which include vote by mail will be considerably more difficult,” Dimondstein told CNN.
CNN’s Mary Kay Mallonee, Ellie Kaufman and Gregory Wallace contributed to this report.
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