The USPS response to criticism that people and agencies rely on the post mark was “we’ll focus on trying to teach you to stop using it wrong then.”
In Washington State the response has been to encourage the use of official drop boxes instead. Some counties put signs near postal boxes telling people not to use it and telling where the nearest drop box is once election day approaches.
But it will absolutely result in more late ballots.
I think it’s absolutely going to disenfranchise some people, and for some that’s a welcome side effect, but I’ve seen these trends with the post office long enough to believe that’s just a secondary effect.
There’s been an effort for years to make the post office more profitable by centralizing things more and more and that means downsizing local offices and centralizing processing. That means nothing gets processed until it gets to a regional facility.
I think the issue is not that they are doing this specifically to disenfranchise voters so much as they don’t care that it does.
the whole “make the postal service profitable” is such a bonkers way of thinking about it too. its a service that i fund by paying taxes and i get cheap mail service. who would get the profit anyway?
There is a stupid conservative line of thinking that government services should fund themselves and turn a profit so that taxes don’t have to be used.
Perfectly acceptable when you suggest the post office but you suggest the Army hold bake sales to fund their tanks and everyone loses their fucking minds.
The USPS response to criticism that people and agencies rely on the post mark was “we’ll focus on trying to teach you to stop using it wrong then.”
In Washington State the response has been to encourage the use of official drop boxes instead. Some counties put signs near postal boxes telling people not to use it and telling where the nearest drop box is once election day approaches.
But it will absolutely result in more late ballots.
Then you’re just going to see signs directing people to unofficial drop boxes…
There have been attempts by the alt right to put up official looking drop boxes in, let’s say, urban areas.
Let’s stop pretending this is about drop boxes and postmarks and call this what it is: voter suppression.
I think it’s absolutely going to disenfranchise some people, and for some that’s a welcome side effect, but I’ve seen these trends with the post office long enough to believe that’s just a secondary effect.
There’s been an effort for years to make the post office more profitable by centralizing things more and more and that means downsizing local offices and centralizing processing. That means nothing gets processed until it gets to a regional facility.
I think the issue is not that they are doing this specifically to disenfranchise voters so much as they don’t care that it does.
the whole “make the postal service profitable” is such a bonkers way of thinking about it too. its a service that i fund by paying taxes and i get cheap mail service. who would get the profit anyway?
There is a stupid conservative line of thinking that government services should fund themselves and turn a profit so that taxes don’t have to be used.
Perfectly acceptable when you suggest the post office but you suggest the Army hold bake sales to fund their tanks and everyone loses their fucking minds.
Did nobody consider taxes and voting? Of course they did. Someone in that organization knew exactly what would happen.