P.S. I’m registered to vote by mail, but given the current state of affairs at USPS, I’m not leaving it to chance that my ballot is received and my vote counted. I’ll crawl over broken glass through a crowd of anti-maskers on election day if I have to.
Seems like an opportunity for Jeffy.
yup, so far we only have anecdotes from Union Reps about stuff. Not saying they are wrong, but it is only one (highly vested) side of the issue. Do the Union Reps really have proof that bonafide mail is not being delivered “at all”? (wouldn’t that be a dereliction of their duty?) Do they have quantifiable numbers that show that First Class delivery has declined from ~90% in 3 days to say, 60%? (It’s the “bills” that would be first class.)
And what mail is being slowed? Parcel post? First class? Amazon boxes being delivered for the ‘last mile’? Other?
Another gripe. Just now. My order from Macy’s was delivered by the postal service. My two blouses in a bag with the Macy’s red star clearly visible was STICKING OUTSIDE my mail box. Just waiting for a package thief. Really, is it too much for the postman to bring it to my front porch and ring the bell or hide it on my porch behind the wall there?
I have the service where I get an email of the images of mail that are on their way. It used to be my mail matched the email. Now I get an image and the mail trails by 2-3 days.
My friend sent a grad card to my daughter postmarked 7/10, we just received it this week!
I feel sorry for people who get medicine by mail, this is not okay.
My painter (he’s worked for us for years) finished a small job and sent an invoice. He said it was OIK to send a check in the mail because he wasn’t in a hurry. He lives 7 miles from us–two towns away. I wrote a check and put it in a box at my local postoffice. We are in different counties (Worcester vs Middlesex in MA). In normal times that letter would take 2-3 days. In July, it took 3 weeks for the letter/check to arrive.
Colorado votes “by mail” but there are a ton of ways to avoid mail if you want to. The initial ballots are mailed, but if you don’t receive one, you can go get one, request another be mailed, or go to a polling place either on election day or before. If you receive one by mail, you have the option to mail it back (with extra postage), drop it in ANY box in the state, or go vote in person. It has to be received by 7 on election day no matter which option you choose.
There is a box at my polling place so it is just as easy to drop it as it is to go in to vote. There are also boxes at police stations, light rail stations, all over downtown, at rec centers, and some church parking lots. This isn’t going to be a problem for the 5 states that vote by mail as we’ve been doing it for years.
The boxes where you just drop the ballots are like mailboxes, but bigger. They are emptied several times a day (more the closer to election) by two workers (usually one Dem, one Rep). They take the ballots out, put them in a plastic box, seal the box with a zip tie, date it, etc. It’s very organized. Because they have my email, I get an email when my ballot is accepted. I assume they do something similar when the mailed ballots are taken to the various clerk and recorder offices around the state daily.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Sybylla has not been permanently banned, but has received a two-week timeout for multiple TOS violations.
And what about machines being removed, hmmm?
My daughter still hasn’t received the birthday card that we mailed on July 12. The check that was inside hasn’t cleared, so I don’t think it was stolen. For her boyfriends birthday in a few weeks we will just Zelle him a gift.
It’s not just perception:
“The United States Postal Service warned Pennsylvania that mail ballots may not be delivered on time to be counted because the state’s deadlines are too tight for its “delivery standards,” casting fresh doubt on Pennsylvania’s ability to conduct much of the 2020 election by mail.”
Aside from only getting mail a few days/week, we’re getting other people’s mail all the time now. Addresses that aren’t even close. We pay whatever we can online now.
This actually is keeping me awake tonight.
There are many things that are being politicized right now that should not be.
This is absolutely outrageous.
My sister, a senior with significant health issues, has had to switch to in-person prescription pickup because she is not getting her drugs by mail on time anymore. This threatens her health, and I believe costs more. This just started in the last couple months. It’s outrageous, frankly.
I got notification that we’re supposed to receive a check in the mail today. I hope it comes! I will check the postmark date when it gets here.
If you take out sorting machines then they have to do it by hand increasing time and actual injury to the carriers. Look for work comp to go up. My sister said she barely had enough mail to go out since “they” are not bringing the normal amount of mail to deliver. That has decreased by a large amount. Look forward to a nation wide strike, which feeds right into the plan to delay the mail. We get almost no mail daily now… It’s a real thing.
Another article on how to vote in each state:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/how-to-vote-2020/
@ucbalumnus… Unless I am not understanding… I think in Illinois everyone got information for mail in ballots. Everyone in my house did.
Some of the issues were brought out in the NY election this year. NY (and other states) send out the ballots by bulk mail, paying a much lower cost. Bulk mail has a 2-10 day window for the post office to deliver and that timeline wasn’t built into the mailing schedule as it was just assumed the ballots would be delivered like first class mail. NY also accepts ballots mailed by election day deadline but metered the mail so there were no post marks and they couldn’t tell if the ballots were mailed by the deadline.
Post office is saying that if the states want guaranteed delivery by the deadlines, they need to pay for first class (oversized) postage. If they want postmarks, they need to have the voters put postage on the ballots.
Two different systems not working together.
In Colorado, the ballots do go out by bulk mail and we’ve had no trouble getting them about 3 weeks before election day. We have to pay postage to return by mail, but the law is that the ballot must be received by the clerk and recorder by 7 pm on election day, so no issue with postmarks.
True absentee ballots that are mailed out of state or out of the country present an entirely different timeline.