CHARLOTTE, N.C. — U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced Tuesday the Postal Service will handle whatever volume of election mail it receives this fall.
The statement from DeJoy, who assumed his position in June, comes after reports of delayed mail, reduced machinery, and overtime cuts.
In a release, DeJoy said, “…there are some longstanding operational initiatives — efforts that predate my arrival at the Postal Service — that have been raised as areas of concern as the nation prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating pandemic. To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded.”
DeJoy is assuring Americans of the following:
- Retail hours at Post Offices will not change.
- Mail processing equipment and blue collection boxes will remain where they are.
- No mail processing facilities will be closed.
- And we reassert that overtime has, and will continue to be, approved as needed.
Congresswoman Alma Adams (D), NC-12, held a news conference Tuesday morning to discuss the controversy surrounding the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) heading into the November election as hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians request absentee-by-mail ballots for the 2020 election.
“Mail is piling up on the floors of the distribution centers,” Adams said. “Workers are being told to leave bills and parcels undelivered.”
Miriam Bell, general president of the Charlotte Area Local 375 American Postal Workers Union, illustrated some of the impacts by showing a picture of machines that have been dismantled in recent weeks and are now sitting in pieces.
"In Charlotte at our processing and distribution center on Scott Futrell Drive, there have been at least seven mail sorting machines removed from service,” Bell said. “That's a lot of mail machines."
Bell said removing machinery is negatively impacting mail delivery times and could potentially further devastate staffing.
According to voter data as of Aug. 9, 163,374 North Carolinians had submitted requests for absentee-by-mail ballots for the 2020 election, which is seven times as many at the same time in 2016.
President Trump again raised concerns Tuesday regarding universal mail-in voting.
"Universal is going to be a disaster, the likes of which, our country has never seen,” he said. “It'll end up being a rigged election, or they will never come out with an outcome."
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced Tuesday that he will join other states in filing a lawsuit to challenge nationwide operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service and ensure safe and secure voting by mail. The lawsuit, which will be filed later this week, seeks to immediately reverse the agency’s actions and guarantee safeguards and standards for election mail.