From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   Bloomberg   26 Oct 2020   
      
   Snail mail: US elex ballots mailed now may not arrive in time   
      
      
   Voting advocates are warning that ballots mailed in now may not arrive in time   
   to be counted and should be dropped off at voting facilities instead.   
      
      
   Delivery by the U.S. Postal Service remains slow despite the intervention of   
   federal judges and some voting advocates say ballots not in the mail now may   
   not arrive in time to be counted and should instead be dropped off at voting   
   facilities.   
      
   The persistent delays include poor on-time statistics in Philadelphia and   
   Detroit — cities in states considered crucial to the Nov. 3 contest. Late   
   ballots face disqualification.   
      
   “Don’t put it in the mail. Not at this point,” said Suzanne Almeida,   
   interim executive director of the policy group Common Cause in Pennsylvania.   
   “We’re at that point where, if you can drop it off in person, drop it off   
   in person.”   
      
   On-time delivery dropped the week ending Oct. 16 across three categories   
   including the First Class service accorded to mailed ballots, the Postal   
   Service said in a news release on Friday. According to the service, 85.58% of   
   First Class mail was delivered    
   on time, down 0.57% from the previous week.   
      
   The Postal Service cited an increase in mail volume, including campaign mail.   
   It promised “extraordinary measures” to deliver ballots, beginning Monday.   
      
   “First-class mail service is now nearly as bad as it was during the worst   
   period this summer. Eight days before the election, this is quite   
   troubling,” Paul Steidler, a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute policy   
   group who analyzes logistics and    
   the postal service, said in a blog post Monday.   
      
      
   Steidler saw potential trouble if voters tarry.   
      
   “If ten million ballots are mailed in by voters two days before their   
   states’ respective deadlines, 1.4 million will be late. The quickest   
   standard for first-class mail is two-day delivery,” Steidler said.   
      
   Across the country, more than 40 million people already have voted by mail,   
   with ballots returned by Democrats outpacing those coming back from   
   Republicans, according to the U.S. Elections Project that tracks early voting.   
      
   Democrats have accused Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Republican   
   donor, of implementing a series of disruptive operational changes over the   
   summer at the Postal Service — such as banning employee overtime,   
   restricting late delivery trips and    
   dismantling hundreds of high-speed mail-sorting machines — just as the   
   nation faced a record surge of mail-in ballots because of the coronavirus   
   pandemic.   
      
   Several judges issued nationwide injunctions against the changes in lawsuits   
   filed by groups of Democratic-led states, but the states now argue those   
   orders haven’t succeeded in speeding delivery. Even so, their requests to   
   appoint an independent    
   monitor at the USPS to ensure compliance with the injunctions have been denied.   
      
   Since a furor over slow mail erupted this summer, DeJoy and the Postal Service   
   have said delivering ballots is a top priority.  President Donald Trump has,   
   without providing evidence, criticized voting by mail as prone to fraud.   
      
      
   https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/10/26/bbsnail-mail-us-ele   
   -ballots-mailed-now-may-not-arrive-in-time   
      
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