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Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

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Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#311

Post by kevingadd »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #276
kevingadd wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting and going to the grocery store are pretty different in multiple ways. For one thing, we give people exactly one day for in-person voting, and they don't get the day off from work - so they probably have a total of maybe 5 non-work hours available to them during which polling places are open, they go to one, stand in line with thousands of other people, then walk into a crowded place, interact up close with pol…

I think you're comparing the voting procedures of the past with the grocery aisles of today. If we sterilize the stores, we can do the same with the voting equipment. In my town, they've moved to paper ballots for audibility. This is also great for mitigating disease transmission because each person only touches their own paper ballot. There's no reason why each polling place can be brought to the same level of dange…

"The voting procedures of the past" is accurate, but only in that i described the most recent election, within the last year. It's silly to assume everything will be fixed by november with how little we invest into our elections.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#312

Post by kevingadd »

dylan604 wrote: post #155
kevingadd wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting and going to the grocery store are pretty different in multiple ways. For one thing, we give people exactly one day for in-person voting, and they don't get the day off from work - so they probably have a total of maybe 5 non-work hours available to them during which polling places are open, they go to one, stand in line with thousands of other people, then walk into a crowded place, interact up close with pol…

Is early voting an option every where? I know there's been a push in my local area informing people that it is an option to avoid the rush on election day.

Early voting is an option in many places, but it's typically very limited. In some states it has been curtailed as a vote suppression measure specifically because so many people use it.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#313

Post by annoyingnoob »

faizshah wrote: post #38
annoyingnoob wrote: post #19

Even the Pony Express failed financially and as far as I can tell those guys were the definition of grit. But technology and the dangers of the times got the best of them.

If the USPS fails financially it just means we pay for it through taxes like every other government service. But in this case the USPS isn’t falling victim to technology it’s falling victim to political sabotage: https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis...

While what you are saying is true, the USPS has very tall requirements. I wouldn't be so fast to discount the effects of technology. https://www.statista.com/statistics/320234/mail-volume-of-th...

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#314

Post by tehjoker »

missedthecue wrote: post #104
tehjoker wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given equal technology, private services can only be cheaper if they exploit their workers harder, after all they have to make a profit so the difference has to come from somewhere. They could potentially offer better service by addressing certain niches that a broader service would be less suited to address, which partially explains UPS, FedEx, DHL etc. Privatizing government services is a money grab nearly 100% of…

Why does the UPS pay better than the post office if they only exist through the "exploitation" of their workforce?

Either they skimp on benefits, they have a better paying niche, provide fewer services, or they work fewer employees harder per unit of work. There's no real alternative holding technology constant. In any case, if they are making a profit that's just skimming cream off the value their employees produce in excess of what they are paid, so exploitation is the right term.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#315

Post by missedthecue »

fredophile wrote: post #303
luckylion wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you want to give up democracy to live under a dictatorship, certainly don't pretend that you actually speak for anyone other than yourself. Please don't do the Reddit thing. The argument wasn't "we need dictatorship", it was "it's easier to switch commercial providers than governments if you're unhappy".

Not all commercial providers are easy to switch. I can't easily switch the company that provides power to my condo. For people with natural gas it's usually not easy to switch that either. If I don't like the property management company my HOA uses it isn't something I can switch on my own. Tonnes of places across the US don't have options for switching high speed internet providers. Switching any of the services I m…

>I can't easily switch the company that provides power to my condo.

This is because they have a government protected monopoly. Cities like Chicago and Baltimore and NYC used to have dozens of competing utilities before the government began granting charters that gave one firm an exclusive right to provide power, gas, or oil.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#316

Post by andrekandre »

_-david-_ wrote: post #300
sangnoir wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provisional ballots avail a lot more leeway for election officials to legally discard ballots compared to mail-in ballots. Its not legally easier to do so with mail-in ballots

I don't think the person you were responsing to was suggesting mail in ballots are legally easier to disgard but easier to illegally discard.

yes, thank you, exactly what i meant

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#317

Post by justSayin000001 »

Simulacra wrote: post #206
maxerickson wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So get the word out that mail in ballots can be dropped off in person ahead of time. This is likely the sensible thing to do within a few weeks of the election anyway. Even without the problems at the post office, dropping it off directly really reduces the chances of it getting lost.

Or stolen or discarded. To vote by mail is to trust the letter carriers, a union that has typically heavily favored one party over the other. The solution is to open more voting locations - which is a state responsibility, not to trust it to some third party.

That makes no sense. The people at the usps are federal employees (aka not a third party) and know the ramifications for tampering with the mail. I trust them to handle people’s votes over a volunteer everyday of the week. Opening more voting locations is a state responsibility, but when one party has a history of shirking their responsibilities and disenfranchising minorities then states ran by that party are hard to trust.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#318

Post by dexterdog »

dx87 wrote: post #228
ericmay wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that's a sign of dysfunction. People like to rail against ad supported companies, why wouldn't we feel the same way here?

Because it's a small price to pay for being able to send mail across the country for 55 cents. If most of the funding for the USPS came from people buying stamps to send out birthday and christmas cards, they'd either have to jack up the price considerably, or they wouldn't stop by your house 6 days a week to see if you have anything to send.

Maybe if those wasteful practices cost what they should less people would do them. Christmas cards are about as impersonal as facebook happy birthday wishes. Daily mail pickup is another thing that is a total waste. I've probably put outgoing mail in my mailbox 50 times in the 20 years I've lived in this house. 99% of what I receive would be better served electronically, but shockingly some companies still don't offer paperless bills.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#319

Post by isoskeles »

callmeal wrote: post #220
isoskeles wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're disregarding "congress" and "administration", I'm not sure how you propose this is a "Republican" problem at all. Republicans where? Republican... citizens? Republican postal workers? Which Republicans have caused USPS to has a history of financial issues? Just from this graph, it looks like since 1960, the only time they ran a surplus was 1994 - 2004: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/USPS…

>Which Republicans have caused USPS to has a history of financial issues? The ones who in 2006 forced the USPS to pre-fund their retirement obligations. https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/... >>Unlike any other public or private entity, under a 2006 law, the U.S. Postal Service must pre-fund retiree health benefits. We must pay today for benefits that will not be paid out until some future da…

> congress

I thought we weren’t allowed to use that word when arguing with you, stupid fuck.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#320

Post by sangnoir »

_-david-_ wrote: post #300
sangnoir wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provisional ballots avail a lot more leeway for election officials to legally discard ballots compared to mail-in ballots. Its not legally easier to do so with mail-in ballots

I don't think the person you were responsing to was suggesting mail in ballots are legally easier to disgard but easier to illegally discard.

I was making the distinction explicit. Illegally discarding ballots is...dicey - all it takes would be a journalist submitting a FOI request to the USPS and comparing the tally against counted votes
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