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US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

theguardian.com

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Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#61

Post by apta »

belltaco wrote: post #53
aty268 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you want a socialized fast food chain, or computer company? Probably not, and do you know why? It's because these are services clearly designed for the market to solve. I hope we can agree there. Delivery is just something that's FAR more efficient in the markets. And the difference in inefficiency is just going to grow. Look at what UPS has been doing the past x years. They constantly reinvest money into new t…

The USPS has mandates from the federal government like having to deliver mail to far flung unprofitable areas and to deliver mail on Saturdays. Lets see UPS get saddled with these requirements and then "look at what UPS has been doing the past x years". There was a time when taxpayers were taking money out of USPS, maybe it should be returned to USPS with interest?

> maybe it should be returned to USPS with interest?

Interest is an evil and harmful practice. We've known it for thousands of years.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#62

Post by Yetanfou »

carnivor wrote: post #44

Shame that this got flagged. From the site Guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon..." I'd say that rampant voter suppression in the United States is a an interesting new phenomenon.

Voter suppression would be when people are actually kept from going to polling stations to cast their votes. Limiting mail-in voting is not voting suppression, it is limiting access to a specific - and rather contentious - way to cast your vote. These are not the same things, at all.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#63

Post by BrandonM »

vzqx wrote: post #60
BrandonM wrote: post #55

The article says: > Trump said on 13 August that he opposes providing additional funding to the USPS to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots. That comment links to another article, where the first paragraph states: > Donald Trump admitted on Thursday he opposed additional funding for the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots. I searched Google a…

The source is this Fox News interview: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-seeks-to-starve-post-... No timestamp because I couldn't bring myself to listen to all 40 minutes.

Thank you. Yeah, these interviews are painful to listen to. Trump said:

> [Democrat representatives] want $3½ billion for the mail-in votes, universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion for the post office. They need that money in order to have the post office work so that it can take these millions and millions of ballots. Now those are just two items [in the bill]; if they don't get there, they can't have mail-in ballots. [A bunch of rambling about failures of mail-in ballots in VA, NJ, etc.]

He seemed to me to be saying that if the Democrats want mail-in ballots, they're going to have to find a way to get this bill passed that would give more funding to the post office. Trump emphasized repeatedly that they're asking for $3.5 billion dollars ("that's a lot of money") for the mail-in ballots.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#64

Post by lanewinfield »

Yetanfou wrote: post #62
carnivor wrote: post #44

Shame that this got flagged. From the site Guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon..." I'd say that rampant voter suppression in the United States is a an interesting new phenomenon.

Voter suppression would be when people are actually kept from going to polling stations to cast their votes. Limiting mail-in voting is not voting suppression, it is limiting access to a specific - and rather contentious - way to cast your vote. These are not the same things, at all.

First of all, that is absolutely not the definition of voter suppression— it is much broader voter disenfranchisement, from voter ID in neighborhoods with low ID ownership, to this example, which is giving people who do not want to risk their lives to vote the option to vote remotely in a manner that is proven as secure.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#65

Post by Grimm665 »

asabjorn wrote: post #36
HumblyTossed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing "cunning" about this. He simply knows that his supporters are okay with it. What he is doing, though, is setting the bar lower and other politicians will do similar in the future. His supporters will then be all up in arms when a Dem does it.

I think Republicans are ok with there being no mail-in voting. At least 50% of the population does not trust the large-scale move to mail-in-voting, so considering that people can stand in line at Home Depot and Whole Foods the loss of election trust does not seem worth it.

> At least 50% of the population does not trust the large-scale move to mail-in-voting

Source on that?

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#66

Post by Yetanfou »

lanewinfield wrote: post #64
Yetanfou wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voter suppression would be when people are actually kept from going to polling stations to cast their votes. Limiting mail-in voting is not voting suppression, it is limiting access to a specific - and rather contentious - way to cast your vote. These are not the same things, at all.

First of all, that is absolutely not the definition of voter suppression— it is much broader voter disenfranchisement, from voter ID in neighborhoods with low ID ownership, to this example, which is giving people who do not want to risk their lives to vote the option to vote remotely in a manner that is proven as secure.

From what I gather - correct me if I'm wrong - voter ID is not a thing which is limited to 'neighbourhoods with low ID ownership' but a state-mandated policy where 36 of 50 states require some form of voter ID [1]. There seem to be possibilities to vote without an ID, the procedure varies from state to state and the eligibility may hinge on the voter presenting ID at a later moment.

Also, people who do not want to risk their lives to vote the option to vote remotely in a manner that is proven as secure is quite a bit of hyperbole in many ways. The risk[ing] their lives part should be clear, there is no reason for a visit to a polling station to be more risk-filled than a visit to the supermarket. Those who really can not vote in person can still request absentee ballots as far as I can tell, it is not as if the USPS is being dismantled. The part about a manner that is proven as secure is just untrue as can be seen by the percentage of mail-in votes which are marked as invalid (up to 10%) and the fact that the registers used to send out ballots seem to be heavily polluted with ballots being sent out for dead people, for previous inhabitants, for pets (!) and more. The system suffers from a garbage-in-garbage-out problem, as long as those registers are polluted that part of the problem remains. Mail-in voting also suffers from the problem of enabling voter coercion in which someone - say a gang leader - uses a threat of force to coerce people into voting for 'his' candidate.

[1] https://www.usa.gov/voter-id

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#67

Post by HumblyTossed »

asabjorn wrote: post #36
HumblyTossed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing "cunning" about this. He simply knows that his supporters are okay with it. What he is doing, though, is setting the bar lower and other politicians will do similar in the future. His supporters will then be all up in arms when a Dem does it.

I think Republicans are ok with there being no mail-in voting. At least 50% of the population does not trust the large-scale move to mail-in-voting, so considering that people can stand in line at Home Depot and Whole Foods the loss of election trust does not seem worth it.

Your argument does not take into account the systematic closing of voting locations. Not everyone can vote in person if there's only a single voting location.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#68

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

carnivor wrote: post #44

Shame that this got flagged. From the site Guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon..." I'd say that rampant voter suppression in the United States is a an interesting new phenomenon.

No doubt your president wants to limit it, but you have to understand most of the people in the west would see postal voting without proper documentation and system that is verifiable is insanity and borderline corruption.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#69

Post by defertoreptar »

jorblumesea wrote: post #4

It's interesting to see that in America, some government services can run at a loss but others are expected to be solvent. No one complains that the military doesn't pay back the 700 billion a year it takes but if public transportation goes over budget or the post office, suddenly it's a big deal. I honestly don't get it. Most services in most countries run at a loss but they provide huge public benefits so it's wort…

The military is paid by taxes. In general, no single citizen has much control over how much it costs. The USPS is different because if we eliminated stamps and paid it all out of taxes, individuals would abuse the system.

Because we pay out of pocket for postage, we expect the USPS to place no further burden on taxpayers. However, it keeps going going into debt. This signals that there is something wrong at an operational level, since its competitors don't go bankrupt despite not having the huge subsidies and advantages in the law that the USPS has.

Re: US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail"

#70

Post by sebazzz »

9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #68
carnivor wrote: post #44

Shame that this got flagged. From the site Guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon..." I'd say that rampant voter suppression in the United States is a an interesting new phenomenon.

No doubt your president wants to limit it, but you have to understand most of the people in the west would see postal voting without proper documentation and system that is verifiable is insanity and borderline corruption.

True, in my country it is mostly forbidden. Essentially it is only allowed when living abroad and even then voting via the embassy is preferred.

Why? Because when you and you alone go into the voting booth, take that red pencil, and tick the box, it is guaranteed you and you alone who casts that vote. You can only be allowed by two other people to vote for them. We also have no voting computers so maybe my country is just old fashioned.

In any case, if something needs to chance in the USA it is far too late for that. The current elections cannot be allowed to be compromised so voting by mail should be facilitated.

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