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Reuters
The US Postal Service has adopted new policy that was decided as an attempt to sabotage the 2020 elections.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said he would reverse operational changes that critics say would hamper postal voting.
The U-turn comes as Mr DeJoy is set to testify before Congress and at least 20 states were prepared to prosecute.
There is a fierce debate over post-financing in 2020, as record numbers of Americans are expected to vote by post because of the pandemic.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) under Mr DeJoy had begun what it said were austerity measures in recent months.
What has changed?
Policies initiated under Mr DeJoy included removal of e-mail boxes, cancellation of delivery runs and closure of sorting centers.
In a sharp reversal, Mr DeJoy has now said that post office hours would not be cut, and mailboxes and sorting machines would stop being removed.
Mr DeJoy, a former Republican donor, also said overtime payments would remain approved to ensure deliveries arrive on time.
“To prevent even the appearance of any influence on election post, I suspend these initiatives until after the end of the election,” Mr DeJoy said in a statement.
- What is American series about postal service?
Why the U-turn?
One week ago, Donald Trump said he had no interest in additional funding for the U.S. Postal Service, saying the money would not be used to help process ballot mail. It was all part of his ongoing, and largely unfounded, campaign against the widespread use of postal investigations to minimize the risk of coronavirus spread.
By this Monday, the president tweeted that he “wanted the post office” and told a Minnesota public that he “would strengthen” the service.
And now his postmaster general has said that the agency is stopping taking out mail domes and restricting delivery routes.
What changed?
It turns out that the postal service is quite popular. A Morning Consult poll found that 80% of Americans have a positive view. The elderly use it to receive prescription medication. For rural residents, it is a lifeline for the rest of the world.
Whether the recent moves were a misunderstood part of a long-planned change, or, as some on the left suspect, the result of a larger conspiracy, the White House concluded that there was only one way out – retreat.
What is the reaction?
The development comes as the series on the politicization of the most popular US government agency has become a top issue in the 2020 presidential campaign.
Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama – in what was considered his most high-profile criticism of his successor to date – accused Mr Trump of trying to “actively kneel” the postal service.
Defenders of the changes said they needed to help the USPS get out of financial debt. The budget deficit has risen to $ 160bn (£ 122bn) amid a decades-long decline in postal volume.
Marke Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union representing 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 gets it all back” -up “.
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Reuters
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, cheered the postmaster’s full face on Tuesday, telling reporters: “She felt the heat and that’s what we were trying to do, make it too hot to treat.” On Sunday, Ms Pelosi had recalled the house from a recession to investigate USPS policy.
Mr DeJoy, a key political donor appointed by Mr Trump to lead the USPS in May, will testify Friday before a Republican-led House of Representatives committee, and then to a Democrat-led committee on Monday.
What did Trump say?
Last week, President Trump said he rejected a funding boost for the USPS to shake up a predicted influx of mail-in votes, claiming without proof that it would lead to voter fraud and helping Democrats.
Mr. Trump has also suggested delaying the election, which he does not have the power to do, to stop postal ballots leading to “inaccurate and fraudulent” results.
- Does US postal vote lead to ‘enormous fraud’?
Voice by post is not new to the US. According to Reuters, about one in four voters in 2016 cast ballots.
Critics say people have been able to vote more than once through absent votes and then re-vote in person, although several national and state-level studies over the years have found no evidence of widespread fraud.
But these are rare incidents, and the rate of vote-rigging in general in the US is between 0.00004% and 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice.
