Texas is one of most states of the union where the Postal Service has said
it cannot guarantee delivery of mail ballots to meet state law. How
much is the fault of the USPS and specifically the postmaster general, per Vice, and how much is general systemic issues, per Vox, is a matter of debate. To a degree. Even if part of this is systemic, Vice's Aaron Gordon has repeatedly had the goods on USPS actions that seem deliberate by new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, though Gordon does note system issues at the last link, and also notes that the destruction of mail sorters started before DeJoy took over.
Adding to the whole problem is Trump's open admission that he doesn't want states to expand vote by mail, so if he starves the USPS beast ....
Further adding to the problem is the drive to kill the USPS is not new. Wall Street on Parade notes that it's got Koch money behind it, and the Kochs themselves have had this as one of their libertarian wet dreams for 40 years.
The
sad part is that many librulz on Twitter think either FedEx, UPS, or
both, is the answer. Reality? One: Neither has the experience with USPS
volume. Two: Neither has the equipment to handle first-class mail.
Outside of packages, there's other types of mail, too. Second class is
your "community" type newspapers sent by mail, newsletters, and
magazines. National trade groups have asked and neither FedEx nor UPS
wants them. In the long haul, neither would want first-class mail unless
rural free delivery were ended. That's something that red-state, especially rural red-state, legislators continue to refuse to discuss.How Charles and David Koch would explain all of these facts, I have no idea. I don't think they've ever been directly confronted with it.
Besides, as both companies note, they legally cannot deliver vote-by-mail ballot. Or any other first-class mail. (That piece is not bad on whether FedEx and UPS, both legally and in terms of infrastructure, CAN do first-class mail, including ballots, right now. It's a "fail" in that it doesn't ask either company if they WANT TO in the future.)
AP follows with a question and answer explainer. It notes that the five states that already have universal vote-by-mail options should still be OK. Other states expecting a surge in mail ballot requests? Not. And, it's true that local and state election officials, as well as the USPS, aren't prepared for this.
The real problem? Besides the prefunding of USPS pensions, is the whole issue of expecting the Postal Service to be making money. Pre-1971, the old, socialist (government ownership of the means of "mail production") US Post Office was NOT expected to do so at all. But? Neoliberal national Dems in the left hand of the duopoly won't tell you that. Reminder: Almost all Democrats joined almost all Republicans in washing their hands of Post Office problems by creating the USPS. (Nixon saw the 1970 postal workers strike as the key to gutting the old Post Office.) Now, the old Post Office wasn't perfect. And it needed investments in things like ... mail sorting machines, to be anachronistically ironic. It also needed to adjust to the new age of delivery; it was at this general time that mail delivery by plane passed that by rail and then that separate airmail rates were gotten rid of, specifically, in 1976, but the handwriting was on the wall at this time. But, in the past, the government would have funded the sorting machines, and other needed changes, out of the general budget. Instead, and going along with Richard Nixon engaging in a bit of would-be strikebreaking, both parties decided to agree on one of the first major neoliberal actions in D.C. and create the Postal Service.
And, we're in Kabuki theater, Dem-style, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about recalling the House early from recess over the issue. If Mitch the Turtle doesn't do the same for the Senate, this is bupkis. Beyond that, except possible Sanders and a few others, no Congressional Dems want to tackle the real issues. Even Dems generally don't talk about the pension prefunding boat anchor, and about nobody outside of Sanders may mention things like postal banking.
Sidebar: Nick Harper cleans up some misconceptions, such as the idea that the Constitution mandates some sort of government postal operations (it doesn't explicitly, but I would argue it does so implicitly [update: as the Constitution mandates the federal government has responsibility for estabilishing post offices as well as post roads, and if we want to go all originalist, private postal services for the masses didn't exist in any country of the world back then]), that the USPS is supposed to prefund pensions (only retiree health care) and that it's doing so right now (it's not). That said, his piece is a narrow fiscal framing issue, which doesn't tell how we got here, and also doesn't tell people that FedEx and UPS don't want your mail.
(Oh, and per a cry by modern left-liberals and beyond? The old Post Office also had postal banking.)
