- The U.S. Postal Service is disabling mail sorting machines at US processing centers.
- At least 19 sorting machines, which can process 35,000 pieces per hour, have been dismantled and removed in recent weeks, postal workers told Motherboard.
- The president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union and Democratic lawmakers have dismantled concerns about sorting machines and about sweeping changes to the USPS made by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a top Trump donor who took office earlier this summer.
- Post-vote during the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to cause an increase in postal vote ahead of the 2020 election. President Donald Trump has said he would abstain from USPS funding to sabotage post-election voting .
- Visit the Business Insider website for more stories.
U.S. Postal Service workers say e-mail machines are sorted and removed from distribution facilities in the U.S., which raises concerns about their ability to handle a turnout in post-election polls in the general election in the United States. November.
At least 19 mail sorters, which can process a maximum of 35,000 pieces per hour, have been removed without explanation, postal workers told Motherboard.
It is the latest in a series of sweeping changes that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major donor to President Donald Trump, has made to the agency since taking office earlier this summer. Postal workers and elected officials have said the changes dismantle the U.S. Postal Service and could have devastating effects on elections, as many people are expected to vote by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kimberly Karol, president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, confirmed that machines are being removed and told NPR in an interview this week that DeJoy’s policies “now affect the way we do business and do not allow us every day. piece to be delivered. “
In a letter to DeJoy last week, Democratic congressmen Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said the removal of mail sorting machines and other austerity measures threatened “timely delivery of mail,” including missing votes.
In a statement to Business Insider, a USPS representative, Dave Partenheimer, said the idea of disabling mail sorters to sabotage post-in voting was “wrong”.
“The Postal Service routinely moves equipment around its network as needed to keep up with changing mail and parcel volumes,” Partenheimer said. “Package volume is up, but mail volume continues to decline. Adjusting our processing infrastructure to current volumes will ensure more efficient, cost-effective operations and better service for our customers.”
Trump has repeatedly attacked the USPS and its role in the 2020 elections, claiming that postal voting is inherently fraudulent, despite evidence that the rate of fraud is extremely low and that voting via email does not help one political party or hurts over the other. On Thursday, Trump told Fox Business that he would withhold USPS funding to block mail-in voting.
“They want $ 25 billion – billion – for the post office. Now they need that money to run the post office so it can take all those millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said, adding, “But if they do not get this no two items, which means you can not have universal mail-in-voice. “
DeJoy, a major donor to Trump, has overseen changing changes at the USPS, cutting its budget amid the COVID-19 pandemic and securing rent.
Post workers told Motherboard that while it was not uncommon for mail sorters to be disabled or moved under facilities, the timing coincided with Trump’s pressure to destabilize the USPS ahead of the election.
“When you unplug one of the machines, it takes away our ability to react to unforeseen things that might happen,” Karol told Motherboard.
But experts have said Trump’s claim that the USPS will not be able to process the e – mail vote without a larger budget is flawed. Amber McReynolds, former director of the Denver Elections Division and CEO of the National Vote At Home Institute, told Business Insider in April that election-related mail would probably not penalize the service.
“The Postal Services estimate that they process about 140 billion mails a year. And when we talk about 250 million e-mails for, say, every American, that’s only about 0.2% of their normal volume,” she said.
