In all of this talk about the benefits of vote-by-mail, there’s one big elephant left in the room. That’s the future of the United States Postal Service.
The history of this agency is firmly rooted in America’s colonial history, when Benjamin Franklin was elected by the Second Continental Congress to head a committee charged with establishing a postal system throughout the colonies. In July of 1775, he was appointed Postmaster General.
When the colonies became a nation, President George Washington signed the act that established the Post Office Department, and it was officially elevated to Cabinet status 80 years later.
But Republican antipathy toward the agency stretches back to 1970, when President Richard Nixon, fed up with striking postal workers, signed the Postal Reorganization Act. While the move gave the postal worker unions much of what they wanted, it also removed the Post Office Department from Cabinet-level status and reconceived it as the United States Postal Service.
Now operating as a quasi-governmental agency, the USPS has been negatively impacted by the rise of e-mail over the last couple of decades as well as competition from private delivery services. And at the same time, Republican-led Congresses that have been skeptical of unions and would favor privatizing the service have passed legislation such as the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act, which has saddled the USPS with onerous financial obligations. The agency has suffered years of annual operating losses, largely due to the accrual of unpaid mandatory retiree health benefits, and now COVID-19 has led to a further loss in revenue.
Calls for Congress to address these shortfalls in the CARES Act funding resulted in a $10 billion loan to USPS, which is nowhere near what the agency has asked for in order to continue its operations through this year.
President Trump and other Republicans have indicated that they might not mind letting the USPS fail.
Current USPS Chief Megan Brennan is retiring on June 15, and both her Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman and the vice chair of the USPS Board of Governors David Williams have departed before her, which will lead a leadership vacuum at a time when the Postal Service’s survival is viewed as essential for an effective election in the fall.
Declining a request to be interviewed for this article, the USPS instead responded with a cautiously worded statement that does not address the most pressing issues it seems to be facing.
“As we anticipate that many voters may choose to use the mail to participate in the upcoming elections due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are conducting and will continue to proactively conduct outreach with state and local election officials and Secretaries of State so that they can make informed decisions and educate the public about what they can expect when using the mail to vote. As part of these outreach efforts, we will discuss our delivery processes and will consult with election officials about how they can design their mailings in a manner that comport with postal regulations, improve mail piece visibility, and ensure efficient and cost-effective processing and delivery.”
But others outside of the USPS are more forthright in addressing looming concerns.
Washington’s vote-by-mail elections allow voters to vote from home. – photo courtesy of King County Elections