Election Day is coming!! And because the country can expect more people to vote via mail-in ballot, we thought we’d cover what’s going on with USPS, how it may influence the election and some myths that need clarification.
HISTORY
Absentee voting and voting by mail has been around in our country for a while, with the earliest examples being during the colonial era. However, the most significant example historians have been able to dig up was during the Civil War in the 1864 presidential election, where soldiers were allowed to vote in camps and field hospitals. Another significant example was during WWII as seen by the Soldier Voting Act of 1942, where soldiers in the military overseas were allowed to cast their votes abroad. For a while, voting in this fashion was only allowed for military purposes, but this soon changed as people who could not vote in person for non-military reasons (such as being away from home due to their jobs) also gained the right to absentee voting. Years later, states started adopting vote-by-mail policies. While Washington was the first state to offer no-excuse absentee balloting, Oregon held the first entirely vote-by-mail election in 1995 and has been a vote-by-mail state since 2000. Other states such as California, Hawaii and Utah have since followed this idea, implementing vote-by-mail options in their elections.
CURRENT FUNDING SITUATION
The Postal Service (which employs over 600,000 people) does not rely on taxpayer money and entirely depends on funds from stamps and other fees. Through this, USPS creates enough money to cover their costs of operations, but not enough to cover pension and retiree health care plans. This is likely because, with the increase in digital mail over the past few decades, the amount of First-Class Mail sent out has been decreasing.
Through the CARES Act, USPS was given a $10 billion loan as emergency relief (that would eventually have to be paid back). Additionally, in August 2020, the House passed a bill that gave USPS $25 billion in funding and called for any changes that would reverse measures that have resulted in mail delays, but Trump stated he would not sign off on the bill (and previously, in March of 2020, was against signing anything that could bailout the agency).
At the end of the day, however, it is important to realize how essential the Postal Service is, regardless of how much money it makes. People all around the country, especially in rural areas, rely on a reliable mail system to receive bills, prescriptions, and more. Thousands of jobs could be impacted if USPS were to ever fall, almost 20% of them being veterans. “Simply put, USPS should not be viewed as a casualty of financial inefficiencies as much as it should be viewed as a constitutional public good- a public service- that is necessary for democracy and deserves adequate funding to fully operate for the American people.” (Ray, 2020)
POSTMASTER GENERAL’S INFLUENCE
The current Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy —whose job includes supervising the Post Office’s daily operations, hiring and firing Post Office employees via appointed supervisors, and setting postage rates— has come under fire in the past few months for radically changing USPS’s infrastructure. Despite being appointed only a few months ago (in June 2020), DeJoy (who is a known Republican Party megadonor) has already taken measures to reorganize and change the current way USPS operates. These changes include getting rid of some Post Offices’ high-speed letter sorting machines (that could’ve been sorting ballots in November), as well as stopping workers from delivering overtime to cut costs (and thus resulting in undelivered mail, possibly including ballots). The Postmaster General has gone on record to say, “if we cannot deliver all the mail due to call offs or shortage of people and you have no other help, the mail will not go out,” (Belle, 2020)
DeJoy is also in hot water for having ongoing investments in USPS competitors, such as Amazon. Senator Elizabeth Warren has already claimed an investigation on the Postmaster General needs to happen soon because of this conflict of interest. As Walter Shaub (former director of the Office of Government Ethics) put it, “The idea that you can be a postmaster general and hold tens of millions in stocks in a postal service contractor is pretty shocking,” (Belle, 2020).
MYTHS ABOUT VOTER FRAUD
Here are some myths going around about the Postal Service, and the truths behind them.
“Mailing in ballots results in more fraudulent votes”
FALSE - An analysis from the Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database found only 0.00006% of the 250 million votes by mailed ballots across the US were fraudulent. In addition, a Washington Post analysis found only 143 convictions caused by fraudulent mail-in ballots over the past 20 years
“Mailing in ballots favors one political party over another”
FALSE - The Democracy and Polarization Lab at Stanford University analyzed data from 1996-2018 and found that voting by mail did not give one political party a significant advantage over another. Despite claims that mailing ballots favors the Democratic party, researchers have not found evidence of this and have discovered instead that voting by mail increases voter turnout rates.
“Mail-In ballots get lost in the mail”
FALSE - In April of 2020, RealClearPolitics published an article stating that 28 million mail-in ballots went missing in the last four elections. However, by “missing” this article means to say that these 28.3 million ballots were ballots that were never turned in/used or were undeliverable (equivalent to a registered voter not showing up to the polls).
All of this is to say that the USPS is facing drastic changes from within that can hugely impact this upcoming election. The next month is unpredictable, but what you can do to make sure your vote counts by closely following the instructions on the ballot and mail in your ballots as soon as possible. Check out some of our other blog and Instagram posts to learn about registering, deadlines, and more!