PANDEMIC PROBLEMS

The coronavirus pandemic has put the Postal Service in a difficult position. A reported 12,000 postal workers have fallen ill, with at least 64 fatalities, and the economic contraction has caused a dramatic drop in letter and other flat mail volumes. Mail deliveries could be delayed by a day or more under cost-cutting efforts being imposed by the new postmaster general. The plan eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and says employees must adopt a “different mindset” to ensure the Postal Service’s survival during the pandemic. Postal Service officials have warned they will run out of money by the end of September without help from Congress. The service reported a $4.5 billion loss for the quarter ending in March. The Postal Service has not received taxpayer money since 1982. Bills approved by the Democraticcontrolled House would set aside $25 billion to keep the mail flowing, but they remain stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey denounced the proposal to delay mail delivery, saying it would be a “stunning act of sabotage against our Postal Service.” With states increasingly relying on voting by mail to continue elections during the pandemic, destabilizing the Postal Service not only threatens the economy and the jobs of 600,000 workers, but is also “a direct attack on American democracy itself,” Pascrell said. In late May, President Donald Trump, who has been an absentee voter, said, “To really vote and without fraud you have to go to the polling place.” He added of mail-in balloting, “Obviously there’s going to be fraud. We’re not babies.” Both Republicans and Democrats run absentee and mail-in voting programs as part of their get-out-the-vote operations. In 2018, the national average of rejected mail ballots in the general election was about 1.4% and in the 2016 presidential election year it was 1%, according to a U.S. Election Assistance Commission study.

A postal worker handles absentee ballots. AP