The new US Postmaster General confirmed by President Donald Trump on Monday ordered the endangered public service to make major cost-cutting changes, which could delay mail delivery.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, one of Trump’s top donors who has donated more than $ 2 million to the Republican Party, warned employees that the agency needed to make “difficult” decisions to stay afloat, according to a new published report. in The Washington Post.
“If the plants are late, they will save the mail for the next day,” says a guideline, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post and verified by the American Postal Workers Union.
Carriers generally do not drop mail, they often make multiple trips under heavy loads to send letters and packages to marked recipients as soon as possible.
Experts who reviewed the internal document, entitled “New PMG’s [Postmaster General’s] expectations and plan, “he said was introducing” a new reinvention of the USPS, “which could alienate customers. If the agency increases package delivery rates, it is supported by the administration, competing private companies They could smell the blood and put a new weight on the choking agency.
DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman, rose to headquarters in May after Ron Stroman’s resignation. Stroman, who had defended the integrity of voting by mail, was ousted amid coordinated Republican attempts to undermine public faith in the service.
“Stroman was specifically key in the elections and voting by mail; this is not a good sign,” Jessica Huseman of ProPublica tweeted in response to the resignation.
A USPS spokesperson told Salon in a statement that the service was “developing a business plan to ensure that we will be financially stable and capable of continuing to provide reliable, affordable, and secure delivery of mail, packages, and other communications to all Americans such as a vital part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. ”
That plan has not been finalized, but “it will certainly include new and creative ways for us to accomplish our mission,” the spokesperson added.
Proponents of vote-by-mail say any new policy that delays deliveries could spell bad news for mail-in ballots, leading to delays in voting requests and possible confusion around vote tabs. This represents a major concern for new Democratic congressional candidates seeking to win Republican seats.
“People in power are trying to keep voter turnout low, and they hope that fear will prevent us from exercising our constitutional right to vote in order to stay in power. But they have something else to come,” said MJ Hegar, who He was declared the winner of the Texas Democratic Senate primary on Wednesday, he told Salon.
“We will continue to fight to allow Texans to vote by mail and to make sure that Texans do not have to choose between exercising their constitutional right to vote and public health,” he added.
James Mackler, an aspiring Democratic nominee for the Senate in Tennessee and a veteran of the Iraq War, called the report in The Post “deeply disturbing” in an email sent to Salon.
“This deeply disturbing report is another example of the will to abuse executive branch powers for political gain,” said Mackler. “Our democracy works best when people vote, volunteer and make their voices heard. Efforts to suppress Americans’ voting rights, and to do so safely by mail, face what I fought to defend in the battlefield and in the courtroom. ” “
Last week, a West Virginia mail carrier pleaded guilty to voter fraud and mail injury after admitting that he had tampered with mail ballot requests along his route, changing the party’s affiliation from Democrat to Republican.
The USPS spokesman dismissed these concerns, saying that “the agency’s current financial situation will not affect our ability to deliver electoral and political mail this year.”
“I want to emphasize that we will carry out our operations on time and on schedule, which will result in an affordable, efficient and reliable service,” the spokesperson added.
The new guide has also raised old fears about a decades-old Republican push to privatize the postal service, which now finds itself without resources amid an infrastructure emergency that occurs once in a century.
In an early coronavirus relief bill, lawmakers authorized an additional $ 10 billion for the USPS to fund emergency operations during the pandemic, but the loan stalled amid a dispute with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over the terms that would allow your department to take over some agency operations.
On July 1, Mnuchin announced a $ 700 million bailout of a trucking company and a Pentagon contractor for just $ 70 million, whose former CEO Bill Zollars was confirmed to the USPS board of governors the previous month. Salon reported that the Justice Department charged the company in federal court with crimes committed under the Zollars mandate, including accusations of defrauding the Pentagon in the amount of millions of dollars.
Two months ago, the Democrat-controlled House approved another $ 25 billion emergency aid package to keep the embattled agency alive, but the Republican-led Senate has yet to take the move. The decision would likely rest with Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, chairman of the Republican-led Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, which oversees the agency.
Johnson did not respond to a request for comment. However, his Democratic counterpart, rank member Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan issued a statement to Salon.
“The Postal Service is a vital hotline for our communities. Millions of Americans depend on the Postal Service to deliver prescription drugs and supplies to seniors, help small businesses stay connected to their customers, exercise the fundamental right to vote, and send the goods families need at home, no matter where they live, “Peters said.
“The Postal Service should not slow down mail or compromise service in any way, especially during this crisis,” he added. “I am concerned that the Postal Service leadership prioritizes cost reduction over customer service, and I am monitoring their actions.”
An assistant to Peters told Salon that the USPS Board of Governors said the Postal Service could be insolvent in the coming months due to the pandemic, and that the senator’s office promised to secure bipartisan support.
By emphasizing Peters’ belief that “the independent Board of Governors and the Postal Regulatory Commission should make decisions about what is best for their business models, not for the administration,” the assistant also implied a suspicion that the hand administration was at stake.
Johnson has not expressed interest in the reform. However, in April this year, he and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, bipartisan lobbied the USPS to resolve issues with mail ballot delivery in his state primaries.
Several prominent Republicans, including Trump, have pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about the security of voting by mail as part of a broader effort to inject doubt into the national electoral system. An individual familiar with internal White House campaign discussions told Salon that Republican strategists had highlighted concerns last week about the brutal numbers of internal polls to the president, who routinely attacked the mail system he considers a threat.
However, many of those officials have used that same system, including Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, President of the Republican National Committee Ronna Romney McDaniel, Press Secretary of the White House Kayleigh McEnany, counselor to the president. Kellyanne Conway and the President himself.
