The Voting Thread (Procedures, Turnout, Legal Challenges)(Update: Trump to file suit in PA, MI, WI, AZ, NV, GA) (5 Viewers)

insidejob said:

This could be the nail in her coffin.

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superchuck500 said:

I'm trying to understand how this is a legitimate part of "cost cutting"?

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SaintForLife said:

I should have known there was more to the story when I heard all the panic about Postal Service. Trump's comments about the Post Office and mail in voting were horrible and I'm not referring to that.

Apparently the Post Office has been removing mail boxes and sorters for a while and even before Trump:

https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/where-have-all-collection-boxes-gone

Good article on the issues facing the Post Office:

Stop Panicking About the Post Office

There are many reasons to be concerned about the agency’s funding, but some of the reaction is misplaced

gen.medium.com

Paul Krugman of the NYT said recently: “The Postal Service facilitates citizen inclusion. That’s why Trump hates it.”

Opinion | Trump, the Mail and the Unbinding of America (Published 2020)

The Postal Service facilitates citizen inclusion. That’s why Trump hates it.

www.nytimes.com

The NYT had a different view of the Post Office reform under Obama in 2012:

How vital is the United States Postal Service? The Senate is attempting to answer that this week as it debates the service’s obvious need to drastically reform its business model in the age of electronic communication. Postal officials say they must close about 3,700 underused post offices (there are 32,000 nationally) while offering alternative services through local businesses. They also want to consolidate hundreds of regional processing centers and eliminate Saturday mail deliveries.

Opinion | Rain, Snow, Sleet and Congress (Published 2012)

Lawmakers need to approve a sound plan to keep the United States Postal Service in business.

www.nytimes.com

The overwhelming consensus during the Bush and Obama years was that the Post Office was a money pit and needed flexibility.

Restructuring the U.S. Postal Service

www.cato.org

The GAO recommended cuts and other measures to address the “rapidly deteriorating” financial situation of the U.S.P.S.

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superchuck500 said:

I'm trying to understand how this is a legitimate part of "cost cutting"?

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SaintForLife said:

I should have known there was more to the story when I heard all the panic about Postal Service. Trump's comments about the Post Office and mail in voting were horrible and I'm not referring to that.

Apparently the Post Office has been removing mail boxes and sorters for a while and even before Trump:

https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/where-have-all-collection-boxes-gone

Good article on the issues facing the Post Office:

Stop Panicking About the Post Office

There are many reasons to be concerned about the agency’s funding, but some of the reaction is misplaced

gen.medium.com

Paul Krugman of the NYT said recently: “The Postal Service facilitates citizen inclusion. That’s why Trump hates it.”

Opinion | Trump, the Mail and the Unbinding of America (Published 2020)

The Postal Service facilitates citizen inclusion. That’s why Trump hates it.

www.nytimes.com

The NYT had a different view of the Post Office reform under Obama in 2012:

How vital is the United States Postal Service? The Senate is attempting to answer that this week as it debates the service’s obvious need to drastically reform its business model in the age of electronic communication. Postal officials say they must close about 3,700 underused post offices (there are 32,000 nationally) while offering alternative services through local businesses. They also want to consolidate hundreds of regional processing centers and eliminate Saturday mail deliveries.

Opinion | Rain, Snow, Sleet and Congress (Published 2012)

Lawmakers need to approve a sound plan to keep the United States Postal Service in business.

www.nytimes.com

The overwhelming consensus during the Bush and Obama years was that the Post Office was a money pit and needed flexibility.

Restructuring the U.S. Postal Service

www.cato.org

The GAO recommended cuts and other measures to address the “rapidly deteriorating” financial situation of the U.S.P.S.

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MT15 said:

I largely agree with this, but I do think most of the blame goes to Congress rather than any one administration.

The difference I see this time is that this new guy with no postal experience goes in like a bull in a china shop and starts eliminating OT, and allowing the mail to pile up which guarantees that people won’t get their meds on time. Add in Trump’s rhetoric about the Post Office and the election and the Post Office telling states they can’t guarantee that ballots will arrive on time and it’s a mess.

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• • Stay on schedule
  • No overtime
  • No errors
  • No duplicate work

MT15 said:

I think that “the piece of mail is delivered the next day” is not the reality of the situation. We do have reliable reports of mail being delayed by 7 days or more. I think DeJoy is doing a really awful job of going about improving efficiency. Just world class awful. Between his lack of knowledge, his horrible messaging and his conflicts of interest he should probably be replaced immediately.

Is that from the first article you linked? Because I couldn‘t get that one to open. Gave me a “too many redirects” error.

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SaintForLife said:

The article talked about both of those things. The Post Office telling the states they can't guarantee the ballots arrive on time isn't what it sounds like:

The USPS told election officials that voters’ ballots won’t arrive in time to be counted.
True but possibly not in the way you think.
I think this one is mostly a miscommunication issue. The USPS has warned 46 states with letters about how it can handle election mail.

A primer on election mail: When local election officials send election mail, they have two options: use first class mail or use marketing mail. First class mail is more expensive but faster (two to five days), whereas marketing mail is cheaper but slower (three to 10 days). The USPS recommends that return envelopes given to voters for ballots be first class business reply mail, but other election mail like voter registration materials or the envelopes that send out the blank ballots might be marketing mail.

Apparently, the USPS has informally treated both types of election mail the same, expediting both whenever possible. So local election officials have been opting for marketing mail in order to save on costs. (Sidebar: Elections are funded at the local level and chronically underfunded.)

But the USPS cannot do that anymore because it’s costly. And therefore, election mail will be treated as its paid category. The USPS recognizes that its policy changes may cause some service delays. This means state law may allow voters to request and return ballots by mail on timelines that wouldn’t actually meet the state law’s deadlines because the deadlines are not realistic in the context of the USPS’s practices.

In regards to cutting overtime and mail pile up the article also talks about that as well. Cutting OT was needed because of the dire financial situation for the Post Office.

Claim: The USPS is in financial distress and will be insolvent before the November 2020 election.
Verdict: True about the distress; insolvency is off by 10 months.
The USPS is in a financial bind. The agency has had a net loss for most of the last several years. This is because the demand for shipping letters and flats (large envelopes, newsletters, and magazines) has declined steadily for over two decades. The costs for shipping letters and flats, however, have not declined as much. Less revenue with the same costs has resulted in the USPS taking financial losses.

Covid-19 has exacerbated these issues even further. Mail volume dropped while expenses, like for personal protective equipment (PPE), increased — so much so that the USPS sought $50 billion in emergency funding and the authority to borrow another $25 billion from the Treasury. This was considered for the CARES Act, which addresses many other Covid-19-induced financial crises. The USPS estimated in the spring that it would have an estimated $13 billion budget shortfall (compared to a $9 billion shortfall in fiscal year 2019).

The USPS relies on Congress for funding.
False.
The USPS is an independent agency that has been almost exclusively self-funded since 1971. It may receive some small appropriations for “public service costs” and “revenue forgone.”

The law states that public service costs are “reimbursement to the Postal Service for public service costs incurred by it in providing a maximum degree of effective and regular postal service nationwide, in communities where post offices may not be deemed self-sustaining.” The USPS may request an appropriation for public service costs for up to $460 million annually. However, the USPS has not requested or received this reimbursement since 1982.

Revenue forgone is funding provided to subsidize the mailing costs of groups such as blind people and overseas absentee voters. Under the Revenue Forgone Reform Act of 1993, the USPS was supposed to receive about $29 million in appropriations every year from 1994 through 2035, but for most years, that funding has not actually been appropriated.

....The USPS’s service woes cannot be entirely attributed to DeJoy and his policies. Many communities, for example, experienced significant delays and even some nondeliveries during their primary elections this year, long before DeJoy took his role. Issues have ranged from changing operations to avoid Covid-19 spread, workforce shortages due to quarantines and illness, working out kinks of handling mail voting where it’s new or increased substantially, and managing the influx of packages due to increased online shopping.

The Washington Peice of workt obtained an internal document last month showing changes to delivery policies put in place by DeJoy that have slowed service since July. The new policy guidelines generally fall into a few categories:

• • Stay on schedule
  • No overtime
  • No errors
  • No duplicate work

Many folks are paying special attention to the directive that USPS employees must leave distribution centers on time — even if it means leaving some mail behind. “One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is that — temporarily — we may see mail left behind, which is not typical,” the memo reads. “We will address root causes of these delays and adjust the very next day.”

The key word is “temporarily.” The context of the document supports that mail is not intended to sit for days. A piece of mail may be left behind on one day merely because it missed the boat, so to speak, but it will be delivered the next day.

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The moose said:

Hey there guy do you know what medium actually is?

It was actually founded by the guy that coined the phrase blogger! You know the Twitter dude.

Do me a favor find me another article written by Nick Harper.

Well the colts use to have a corner named the same but it is not him.

You Google the name and journalist you get a guy from the UK.

I can't seem to find a single thing he has written like ever but what you posted.

So if you could I would like to read something else or is he a blogger?

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SaintForLife said:

Are you able to actually respond to what I'm posting or are you just going to complain about every source I post?

Can you point out anything that's not accurate? I doubt you can, but it's clear you have no interest in doing so.

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stevo3 said:

Maybe. Just maybe, those 3 machines were taken out and replaced with one or two, maybe even three, more modern and efficient mail sorting machines???

Context people. This is just a snapshot report with no context. Notice how she stated that the employee said 3 such machines were taken out, but she DID NOT say that there were no replacements put in.

Just like all these twitter posts of trucks with mailboxes on them. They are a snapshot. The snapshot doesn't account for the fact that these mailboxes are routinely swapped out to be refurbished. Were the pictures taken of old mailboxes enroute to refubishing or were they new mailboxes enroute to replacing old ones?

This is the problem with twitter journalism. Only the information that enhances the narrative the poster seeks is provided, while the full story is left out.

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USPS email tells managers not to reconnect sorting machines | CNN Politics

While Postmaster General Louis DeJoy may be suspending changes to postal service operations, it doesn’t necessarily mean machines that had been removed will be put back in use, according to an email obtained by CNN.

www.cnn.com

MT15 said:

I think that “the piece of mail is delivered the next day” is not the reality of the situation. We do have reliable reports of mail being delayed by 7 days or more. I think DeJoy is doing a really awful job of going about improving efficiency. Just world class awful. Between his lack of knowledge, his horrible messaging and his conflicts of interest he should probably be replaced immediately.

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