Tag Archives: U.S. Postal service

U.S. Postal Service warns of ‘significant risk’ of late ballots

By Andy Sullivan and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ahead of a presidential election that could see up to half of U.S. voters cast their ballots by mail, the U.S. Postal Service is warning some states that they need to provide more time for those votes to be counted.

The Postal Service has told at least three states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Washington — there is “significant risk” voters will not have enough time to complete their ballots and return them on time under current state laws, which allow them to request ballots just days before the election.

The letters highlight the possibility that a meaningful number of mail votes in the Nov. 3 presidential election might go uncounted if they are returned too late.

“State and local election officials must understand and take into account our operational standards and recommended timelines,” Postal Service spokeswoman Martha Johnson said. She did not respond to a question about how many states in total got warning letters.

Election officials have scrambled to prepare for a deluge of mail ballots as Americans avoid public gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has prompted many states to make it easier to vote by mail.

The Postal Service itself has gotten pulled into a political fight, with Republican President Donald Trump on Thursday saying he objected to providing funds for the struggling service or mail voting as part of a coronavirus relief package.

Trump, who is trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden in opinion polls, has railed against widespread mail voting, saying without evidence that it could lead to fraud.

Biden and other top Democrats have accused Trump of trying to discourage mail voting because he believes doing so would boost his re-election chances.

Election experts say mail voting is as secure as any other method.

TOO LITTLE TIME?

The Postal Service has warned some states that allowing voters to request ballots less than a week before the election does not leave enough time to print up the ballot, mail it to the voter and have it returned.

“There is significant risk that the voter will not have sufficient time to complete and mail the completed ballot back to election officials in time for it to arrive by the state’s return deadline,” Postal Service General Counsel Thomas Marshall wrote in a July 29 letter to Michigan’s top election official seen by Reuters.

Half of the states allow voters to request an absentee ballot within seven days of an election. The Postal Service recommends that mail ballots should be completed and in the mail back to election offices by that point, according to Marshall’s letter.

Ohio, Michigan and several other states with tight deadlines have so far not pushed them back.

Pennsylvania’s secretary of state asked the state Supreme Court to allow ballots to be counted if they are received up to three days after the Nov. 3 election, rather than on Election Day.

Marshall also encouraged election officials to use its first-class mail service to ensure prompt delivery, rather than the cheaper and slower bulk-mail rate.

In past elections the Postal Service has given priority to all political and election mail, no matter the postage rate, according to workers and the service’s internal watchdog.

“If this letter aims to backtrack on that collaboration or the promise of prioritization of election mail, that would be very concerning,” said Tracy Wimmer, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of State, which oversees elections.

Roughly 0.25% of mail ballots were rejected in 2016 because they arrived too late, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Problems with mail ballots have marred many primary elections this year. Voters in Georgia reported not getting requested mail ballots, while in New York a judge ordered election officials to count thousands of ballots they had rejected for missing that state’s deadline.

The issue has taken on added urgency in recent weeks, as cost-cutting measures put in place by Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, have led to widespread mail delays.

“They’re not moving as fast as they normally would, and I think we know that,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said at a news conference on Wednesday. He urged voters to complete their ballots as quickly as possible.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan and David Shepardson; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

New Jersey to give voters in-person, mail-in option in November election, governor says

(Reuters) – New Jersey voters will have the choice in the November election of using ballots mailed to their homes or going to their local polling places, just as they did during last month’s primary elections, Governor Phil Murphy said on Friday.

“We’re going to have a hybrid model in November,” Murphy said on CNN. “We liked what we saw. We’ll tweak it. And that’s where we’re headed.”

A formal announcement will be made later on Friday, Murphy said.

Under the procedure, which is designed to protect residents from exposure to the coronavirus, all registered voters will have ballots mailed to their homes which they can mail back or place in secure “drop boxes.”

Residents who opt to go to their local polling places on Nov. 3 will do so in “provisional voting,” meaning they must use paper ballots, not voting machines, so that officials can guard against duplicate voting, Murphy said.

The process is “a little bit more cumbersome but it works,” he said.

Mail-in voting, which several states encouraged because of the pandemic, often led to delays in reporting the results of this year’s primary elections, especially in close races, because of the additional time needed to count them. States often required mail-in ballots to be postmarked by Election Day.

Asked whether he was concerned about the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service, Murphy acknowledged that there were delays because of personnel shortages in the first two months of the pandemic, but said “as far as we can tell, it’s behind us.”

“We’ve been in constant touch with the U.S. Postal Service,” he said. “We’ve pressed them hard. We’ll continue to press them hard.”

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Trump says he is holding up coronavirus aid to block Democrats’ bid for election funding

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Funding for the U.S. Postal Service and to shore up election infrastructure is the main sticking point in talks between the White House and top congressional Democrats over a fresh round of coronavirus relief, President Donald Trump said on Thursday.

Trump said his negotiators have resisted Democrats’ calls for additional money to help U.S. election officials prepare for a presidential contest during a pandemic that has killed more than 165,000 Americans and presented severe logistical challenges to organizing large events like the Nov. 3 election.

“The items are the post office and the $3.5 billion for mail-in voting,” Trump told Fox Business Network, saying Democrats want to give the post office $25 billion. “If we don’t make the deal, that means they can’t have the money, that means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. It just can’t happen.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in voting, a way to allow citizens to take part in the election without creating crowding that raises the risk of transmitting COVID-19, is likely to be rife with fraud. Experts who study elections say there is little proof that this is the case.

The White House negotiating team of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has not met with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in six days.

When the two sides last met Friday, they were some $2 trillion apart in their negotiating positions. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week showed that Americans blame both parties for the standoff, which has led to the expiration of a $600 per week lifeline to unemployed people.

New Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has donated $2.7 million to Trump and his fellow Republicans since 2017, has ordered operational changes and a clampdown on overtime in a bid to fix the financially troubled Postal Service, which reported a net loss of $2.2 billion in the last quarter.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Susan Heavey; Editing by Scott Malone, Catherine Evans and Steve Orlofsky)

U.S. House panel to hold Postal Service hearing amid 2020 election concerns

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives committee plans to hold a Sept. 17 hearing with new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to examine operational changes to the U.S. Postal Service amid concerns about the 2020 election and recent reports of a slowdown in some deliveries.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform invited DeJoy “to examine recent changes to U.S. Postal Service operations and standards and the need for on-time mail delivery during the ongoing pandemic and upcoming election, which as you know may be held largely by mail-in ballot,” said Representative Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the panel.

Maloney and other senior House Democrats warned in a July 20 letter that “increases in mail delivery timing would impair the ability of ballots to be received and counted in a timely manner — an unacceptable outcome for a free and fair election.”

A spokesman for DeJoy declined to comment on the hearing.

The Postal Service will report third-quarter financials on Friday when the board holds a virtual meeting.

A group of senators last week raised concerns that delaying mail deliveries could hinder attempts to mail in ballots for the 2020 election by Americans fearful about voting in person during a pandemic.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to sue Nevada after Democratic lawmakers passed a bill on Sunday that would send mail-in ballots to every voter ahead of November’s presidential election in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump, who has claimed without evidence that voting by mail will lead to rampant fraud, wrote on Twitter on Monday that the legislation approved on Sunday was an “illegal late night coup.”

If the state’s Democratic governor, Steve Sisolak, signs the bill as expected, Nevada would become the seventh state to send ballots to all registered voters for the Nov. 3 election.

(Reporting by David Shepardson)

U.S. Post Office board meets as COVID takes its toll and funding dries up

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Postal Service’s Board of Governors meets on Friday at a critical juncture as it faces accusations from the White House that it charges package shippers such as Amazon.com too little and as the new coronavirus cuts its revenue by about $13 billion.

The meeting also comes two days after the governors announced that they had selected Republican donor Louis DeJoy to be the next postmaster general to replace a retiring Megan Brennan.

Top of mind for the governors will be the budget shortfall, according to a person knowledgeable about the agenda.

The service, which was struggling before efforts to stop the spread of the new coronavirus prompted a widespread economic shutdown, is funded entirely through services and postage and has been hurt by advertisers’ decision to reduce mail during the pandemic.

The U.S. Congress has authorized the Treasury Department to lend it up to $10 billion as part of a $2.3 trillion coronavirus stimulus package. President Donald Trump has threatened to block that aid.

Since early in his administration, the president has criticized the post office, saying it was poorly run and charges too little to deliver packages. Many of those packages are sent by online retailers such as Amazon.com, whose founder and CEO Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which has been critical of the president.

Without assistance, the service may run out of money in September, even as Americans increasingly turn to online shopping as the pandemic batters the U.S. economy. The current postmaster general told a congressional committee last month that the new coronavirus alone could mean $13 billion in lost revenue this year.

The pandemic has also caused a surge of interest in expanding options to vote by mail rather than crowding into polling places, making it more important that funding extends past November for the presidential election.

The board meeting will also address the post office’s response to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, including employee safety, according to a person knowledgeable about the agenda.

The disease has killed more than 50 of the service’s 600,000 workers, said James Horwitz, a spokesman for the American Postal Workers Union. A spokesman for the postal service declined to confirm the deaths. COVID-19 has killed more than 75,000 Americans.

The U.S. Postal Service has been struggling for years as online communication replaces letters, and after a 2006 law required it to pre-fund its employee-pension and retirement health care costs for the next seventy-five years.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

The TuSimple self-driving truck is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters May 20, 2019. TuSimple/Handout via REUTERS

By Heather Somerville

(Reuters) – The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday started a two-week test transporting mail across three Southwestern states using self-driving trucks, a step forward in the effort to commercialize autonomous vehicle technology for hauling freight.

San Diego-based startup TuSimple said its self-driving trucks will begin hauling mail between USPS facilities in Phoenix and Dallas to see how the nascent technology might improve delivery times and costs. A safety driver will sit behind the wheel to intervene if necessary and an engineer will ride in the passenger seat.

If successful, it would mark an achievement for the autonomous driving industry and a possible solution to the driver shortage and regulatory constraints faced by freight haulers across the country.

The pilot program involves five round trips, each totaling more than 2,100 miles (3,380 km) or around 45 hours of driving. It is unclear whether self-driving mail delivery will continue after the two-week pilot.

“The work with TuSimple is our first initiative in autonomous long-haul transportation,” USPS spokeswoman Kim Frum said. “We are conducting research and testing as part of our efforts to operate a future class of vehicles which will incorporate new technology.”

TuSimple and the USPS declined to disclose the cost of the program, but Frum said no tax dollars were used and the agency relies on revenue from sales of postage and other products. TuSimple has raised $178 million in private financing, including from chipmaker Nvidia Corp and Chinese online media company Sina Corp.

The trucks will travel on major interstates and pass through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The TuSimple self-driving truck is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters May 20, 2019. TuSimple/Handout via REUTERS

The TuSimple self-driving truck is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters May 20, 2019. TuSimple/Handout via REUTERS

“This run is really in the sweet spot of how we believe autonomous trucks will be used,” said TuSimple Chief Product Officer Chuck Price. “These long runs are beyond the range of a single human driver, which means today if they do this run they have to figure out how to cover it with multiple drivers in the vehicle.”

The goal is to eliminate the need for a driver, freeing shippers and freight-haulers from the constraints of a worsening driver shortage. The American Trucking Associations estimates a shortage of as many as 174,500 drivers by 2024, due to an aging workforce and the difficulty of attracting younger drivers.

A new safety law requiring truck drivers to electronically log their miles has further constrained how quickly and efficiently fleets can move goods.

TuSimple’s tie-up with the USPS marks an achievement for the fledgling self-driving truck industry, and follows Swedish company Einride’s entry into freight delivery using driverless electric trucks on a public road, announced last week.

The developments contrast with retrenching efforts by robotaxi companies such as General Motors Co unit Cruise, Uber Technologies Inc and startup Drive.ai, which have stumbled in building self-driving cars that can anticipate and respond to humans and navigate urban areas, an expensive and technologically challenging feat.

Price said self-driving trucks have advantages over passenger cars, including the relative ease of operating on interstates compared with city centers, which reduces mapping requirements and safety challenges involving pedestrians and bicyclists.

(Reporting by Heather Somerville in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. Postal Service loss triples, even as package deliveries rise

FILE PHOTO: A view shows U.S. postal service mail boxes at a post office in Encinitas, California February 6, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Postal Service lost almost $4 billion in 2018 even as package deliveries rose, according to results released on Wednesday, giving U.S. President Donald Trump potential ammunition against Amazon.com Inc, which he claims pays too little for the agency’s services.

Trump, without presenting evidence, has attacked Amazon repeatedly over the past year, accusing the world’s largest online retailer of taking advantage of USPS by not paying enough for deliveries to make the service profitable.

USPS, an independent agency within the federal government, reported operating revenue of $70.6 billion for fiscal year 2018, which ended on Sept. 30, as sales at its shipping and packages business rose 10 percent.

However, its net loss more than tripled to $3.9 billion from a loss of $1.2 billion in 2017, hurt by rising pay and benefits and higher transport costs, such as gas prices.

Package delivery, especially for major customer Amazon, has become a key part of USPS’s business but has not been enough to offset the sharp decline in first-class letters caused by the internet and email.

The president does not have the power to determine postal rates. They are set by the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent government agency with commissioners from both political parties who are selected by the president. That panel raised prices on packages by almost 2 percent in November.

Amazon is run by founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, a newspaper Trump has repeatedly railed against. It has shown interest in delivering its own packages and has tested drones for doing so.

In 2015, Amazon spent $11.5 billion on shipping, 46 percent of its total operating expenses that year. It has not commented publicly on Trump’s criticisms.

(Reporting by Chris Sanders and Diane Bartz; Editing by Bill Rigby)