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The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

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Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#31

Post by poulsbohemian »

zalkota wrote: post #2

How about we don’t have a mail in vote and just make the day a holiday.

As much as I'd like to see it be a holiday (because I think it places the right degree of emphasis on its importance), the reality is that voting by mail works great. In fact, living in Washington state and having voted absentee before VBM became universal... I'm not sure I've ever voted in a polling place (and I've got a lot of grey hair). I can't say enough good things about being able to take my time to research candidates and vote when it is convenient for my schedule, rather than some 9-8 window on a particular day.

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#32

Post by Lendal »

bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #26
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've actively lobbied for that for years--Republicans have refused, because they know that the people working low-income jobs whose managers will not let them off to go vote tend to lean Democratic. There are some states where the best we've managed is being allowed to take "unpaid" time off to go vote, with the caveat that your employer cannot fire you for doing so. Some states don't even have that much. Guess whic…

If you've actively lobbied for that for years, in multiple states and those darn Republicans refused it... Then those years would include times when there was a Democrat president and congress, and governors. So maybe blaming the other side is just politically convenient?

Florida's state govt has been in complete control of Republicans (all houses + gov) for over 30 years, despite Republican voter registrations being in the minority.

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#33

Post by [deleted] »

bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #26
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've actively lobbied for that for years--Republicans have refused, because they know that the people working low-income jobs whose managers will not let them off to go vote tend to lean Democratic. There are some states where the best we've managed is being allowed to take "unpaid" time off to go vote, with the caveat that your employer cannot fire you for doing so. Some states don't even have that much. Guess whic…

If you've actively lobbied for that for years, in multiple states and those darn Republicans refused it... Then those years would include times when there was a Democrat president and congress, and governors. So maybe blaming the other side is just politically convenient?

[deleted]

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#34

Post by erentz »

BurningFrog wrote: post #13
rabidrat wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that help when some places have only one polling station for 100k people? And there is a global pandemic, so we don't want 100k people congregating in the same crowded space?

Yeah, polling stations are dimensioned for typical turnout, which includes a majority voting by mail.

Not really. Minorities are routinely disenfranchised through polling station closures. See all the polling station closures during the primaries using COVID as the reason.

“Black voters, on average, wait 45 percent longer to vote than white voters; Latino voters wait 46 percent longer”

https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/613408/

See also the particularly egregious Kentucky example where they even tried to close the station while people were still in line.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-primaries-kentucky-1.562334...

The examples of this kind of suppression are sadly countless here in the US.

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#35

Post by berbec »

dwhit wrote: post #22
shiado wrote: post #10

If only there was a communication medium which travelled at the speed of light and 100 years of research in information theory and cryptography which would allow secure auditable verifiable elections from the comfort of home. Nah lets use pre-telegraph technology.

Do not ever allow an election for who gets to control the nukes be decided by an e-vote. I don’t want Boaty McBoatface to be the president.

Marble cake, also the game

https://techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/4chan-takes-over-the-time-...

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#36

Post by strict9 »

My father in law works for the USPS and mentioned the elimination of these machines as well as elimination of overtime about a month ago.

It's being described as a result of a massive decrease in flat mail. From the local union newsletter:

"On 5-15-2020 USPS announced a National Equipment Reduction Plan to remove and scrap 671 pieces of equipment nationwide. ... USPS is scrapping and not relocating these machines because they don't see the mail coming back."

The 5/15 date is interesting because it's about a week after the new Postmaster/CEO was appointed. [0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_DeJoy#U.S._Postmaster_Ge...

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#37

Post by jefurii »

huy-nguyen wrote: post #29
seizethecheese wrote: post #17

We do just in time shipping on top of the post office, so have visibility here. We're definitely seeing mail being delivered more slowly, with more delays. At the same time, it's a question of degree, not a major dismantling of the post office. I'd guess 90% of our packages are still arriving within a day of when they were supposed to. For context, I run bottomless.com, YCW19. We're shipping hundreds of packages from…

You can do a great public service by publishing a metric of postal mail delivery timeliness from across the country.

Major bonus points if you include numbers from before the slowdowns.

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#38

Post by poulsbohemian »

nthj wrote: post #27
seizethecheese wrote: post #17

We do just in time shipping on top of the post office, so have visibility here. We're definitely seeing mail being delivered more slowly, with more delays. At the same time, it's a question of degree, not a major dismantling of the post office. I'd guess 90% of our packages are still arriving within a day of when they were supposed to. For context, I run bottomless.com, YCW19. We're shipping hundreds of packages from…

Hey, newish customer here. I’m in the 10%—my bag is somewhere halfway across the country, and USPS hasn’t posted an update in a week now. I’ll need to supplement with Instacart, which kinda breaks the abstraction. I totally appreciate that USPS isn’t in your control. Cost isn’t really a constraint for me, but running out of coffee is. I just checked and I don’t see a way to switch to FedEx or UPS for an additional ch…

I don't want you to be without coffee either, but can't help but wonder if switching to UPS is exactly what Louis DeJoy wants you to do?

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#39

Post by erentz »

Posted this article separately but it was flagged. The quiet part has been said out loud by the president. The motivations have been made clear here and the speculation about why this is happening ends there IMO:

> “They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/13/donald-trump...

Re: The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

#40

Post by jefurii »

jgacook wrote: post #14
jandrese wrote: post #8

My understanding is that in most areas without existing voter suppression efforts anything postmarked by election day should be counted. This will probably delay the announcement of the winner unless it is a landslide, which is not really that big of a deal unless you are a cable new channel that feels it is necessary to have 24/7 coverage of the election until the winner is announced.

This is untrue - different states have different standards by which mail in ballots will be counted. A postmark on or before Election Day is no guarantee your vote will be tallied, depending on where you live.

And in places like California which take a long time to count ballots they usually announce results and the election is effectvely over before everything is counted.
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