Postal Crisis Ripples Across Nation as Election Looms | Hacker News Reader

Postal Crisis Ripples Across Nation as Election Looms

nytimes.com

Can't wait to see the "everything working as normal, nothing to see here" comments. The hoax virus is a hoax until more and more people know someone that died from it. Nothing wrong with the postal service until your grandma dies or is hospitalized (and billed; either she pays all or you pay it-she is probably on medicare) because her medicine didn't come for several weeks, or the check sent in to pay your bill and you get late fees, and on and on the excuses will come for this corruption.

> Can't wait to see the "everything working as normal, nothing to see here" comments.

This doesn't really contribute to the conversation other than to clarify how defensive your position is before you even begin stating it.

USPS has definitely had worse service as of late, especially with regards to packages.

As far as mail-in voting...I'd rather both major candidates get disqualified and start over

I’d like to see more reporting on the removal of sorting machines. I’m willing to believe that there could be an actual reason for doing this, such as making room of package handling, since that is supposedly an increasing share of mail.

But I certainly haven’t heard or seen any such defenses made.

This is such madness!

>such as making room of package handling

I read an article this morning on exactly that. It said that package handling had surpassed general mail volume and that they needed to shift their focus, so they are retiring some of the sorting machines.

Why do you allow yourself to believe an excuse when Trump has openly admitted that he wants to steal an election?

Because it’s useful to differentiate the innocent from the malign and attack the only malign.

What? Citation very much needed.

In an interview on Fox Business Network, Trump explicitly noted two funding provisions that Democrats are seeking in a relief package that has stalled on Capitol Hill. Without the additional money, he said, the Postal Service won't have the resources to handle a flood of ballots from voters who are seeking to avoid polling places during the coronavirus pandemic.

“If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. “That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting; they just can’t have it.”

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2020/08/14/tr...

Agree or not, Trump's claim is that mail voting undermines integrity. And whether he's theoretically correct or not, honest or not, the first evidence from Paterson NJ showed that mail-in voting spoiled every vote for council. The number of ruined ballots was greater than the margin of victory. People are calling it a "win" because some of the fraudsters (or misguided people accidentally violating electionaw) were arrested, but that doesn't unspoil the vote.

> I’m willing to believe that there could be an actual reason for doing this

At this point, there's no excuse for even the appearance of attacking the postal service before our record mail in election.

I’m honestly baffled why people are against mail in voting. I moved to a new city in 2014. Since then, I receive a ballot in the mail for every election that pertains to me. They always also send a little booklet that has information on each candidate and sort of their self published platform. Because of that, I’m certainly now participating in even the local elections that otherwise would fly under the radar... I mean I wouldn’t take time off work for them probably.

It feels like voter suppression to me, especially since we know that a lot of liberal leaning folks have “opinions” but don’t necessarily vote.

To be clear — I describe myself as moderate. I’m more fiscally conservative but liberal on social issues.

The supposed concern is vote fraud

> I’m honestly baffled why people are against mail in voting.

Because it's bad for their side. Mail in voting massively improves Democratic turnout for a lot of reasons. And when Democrats actually turn out, they win every time. It's the same reason they support gerrymandering and voter ID laws. It has nothing to do with what's "fair" or "democratic" and everything to do with ensuring their ideology doesn't have to hold up in an actual fair election.

Despite several studies there’s no evidence that mail in voting favors one party over another.

What key words or journals should I look into if I want to read more about this? It's hard to filter out the noise machines blasting in every direction.

On both fraud and bias:

Here’s the Brookline’s Institute, a pretty neutral bunch, on fraud: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/02/low-rates-o...

Some analysis from first principles on both fraud and bias: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-is-no-evidence-th...

This non partisan group did detailed analysis of two elections, all of Colorado in 2014 and of Utah in 2016 looking at turnout and bias. https://voteathome.org/

If you want more academic work there’s quite a bit of it done by economics and political science profs. Just search for “mail vote bias”

It could be said that it is harder to suppress the vote of the other party when everybody has equal access through mail in voting.

> I’m honestly baffled why people are against mail in voting.

It's a system that is easily abused.

Traditionally, where I grew up, the problem with postal voting was voter intimidation. Recipients would be told by 'community leaders' to bring their ballot papers to a central location where they were completed en masse with the 'correct' choices made and sent back.

Those who declined were physically assaulted.

Even on a less organised scale it is open to the 'head of household' telling the others how to vote.

> Those who declined were physically assaulted.

Anecdotes aren't the same as data and that story certainly doesn't characterize the general practice of mail in voting. Do you have any data on your claim that organized voter intimidation is a widespread problem? Surely something as extraordinary as that would receive major media attention. All the stories I can find are of basically white supremacy group intimidating black voters at in person voting locations.

These are valid concerns. Group voting today is easy to combat with phone cameras and social media, though. But on the third hard, all parts of the political compass are showing that when crime becomes a national pastime, it's impossible to stop most of it.

Head of household voting is a problem, especially with candidates with large differences in support by gender in cohabitating couples.

But accessibility of polling centers is also a problem (for which the only possible excuse is corruption. Trillions of dollars for war machine but almost none for securing the democracy the war machine is supposed to be defending.)

> I’m honestly baffled why people are against mail in voting.

President Trump has explained that the GOP is hurt when it's easier to vote [1]. There are political incentives to make voting difficult.

[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-vot...

I get how the USPS is pretty essential to the entire practice of mail-in voting.

But, ignoring that one thing, I've always considered the value, to me, of the USPS to be significantly less than zero.

I'm a little bit surprised that noone else ever seems to voice the same opinion.

Well, except the value isn't zero to you, even if you don't use it. It allows a lot of basic government and corporate things to happen (taxes, payroll, sending of legal documents). And it sets a baseline price for mail and package sending services. Imagine being priced out of being able to mail something. I agree junk-mail is a huge pain.

This argument is a lot like not owning a car or bike and claiming that roads have zero value to you. Unless you're off the grid, then maybe this is tenable, but if you're getting mail, you're probably not off the grid.

If you have an extreme minority position, likely based on a lack of understanding of how your packages get to you, it's expected to not hear that opinion often.

It's not a crisis if it was explicitly intended. The progenitors aren't even denying it.

This is a conspiracy.

There could be two sides to this. What if the postal service is doing this on its own, without the President's interference? Slowing down service to show how maybe they are not ready, need more investment, or to counter the President?

It seems like we've seen quotes directly from the president that go against your hypothesis. The new director of the post office is a Trump appointee.

Not just a Trump appointee, but a significant fundraiser in Trump's campaign.

Also, to parent post the new Postmaster has refused to accept funding Congress already gave it.

You're making a bold claim without evidence. Do you have any reason for me to believe that?

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