At home in Kentucky, in mid-August, Mitch McConnell did not sound worried at all. “The post will be just fine,” the Senate majority leader sneered, echoing the reasoning calming other Republicans: the Trump administration reform was just a 228 years Institute, and President Donald Trump’s new Minister of Posts, Louis DeJoy was to make it more efficient. On the same day Trump described the situation in their ‘meta joking manner: “I want to make great new mail, OK?” But the speech heedless only highlighted the spread of national panic, which had caused: less than 80 days before the presidential election, the (USPS will leave more to vote) by e-mail of each previous race in US history, the great machine the United States Postal service sputtering looked like a dead end. The “operating speed” DeJoy announced in July, restrictions on overtime costs of personnel and transport, an e-mail backlog undelivered product, the postal union representatives. The Department of Veterans Affairs has recognized that veterans sent via USPS prescription drugs had been delayed by an average of nearly 25% last year. Small businesses that rely on the convenience of USPS rates, began angry customers whose packages have been lost during distribution centers for weeks. In late July, the Post sounded the alarm itself, sending warning letters to 46 states, including electoral battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida, are warning that the USPS may not be able to honor the elections. Total registered voters are more than 159 million live in the 40 States receiving the largest number of urgent warnings by the Washington Post. Hispanics constitute the door D. C. DeJoy home with false ballots Reading, Save the email, papered save our democracy; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called lawmakers back a bill for the emergency meeting voting to protect the USPS; and Democratic Senator Gary Peters has launched an investigation into DeJoy operational changes. “Is not seen a degree of concern that I have done in the past,” said Melissa Rakestraw, a postman in Illinois. DeJoy that more than three decades ran New Breed Logistics, a national provider of supply chain services with 7,000 employees, has appeared from the blue effects. The post office has lost money for years, thanks to the growth of the Internet, persistent poor management and heavy, but the intervention of ineffective government. received the point of its reform program, the Post Office managers include reassignment or move was to reduce costs and increase the “performance for the election and coming high season,” he wrote the veteran 23, in a memorandum interior of the CNN. The slowdowns and delays, he said, were “the unintended consequences.” But foreigners have discovered a pattern. Behind the daily chaos, Trump presidency has a permanent feature: to serve the US government with Trump own political purposes, the great power and range. He has repeatedly said executive actions indicating the political benefits to bring them to him, and a constant parade of his advisers offered after the administration of leave examples described in exasperation. Routes Trump has sought to transform the Department of Homeland Security “used a tool for his political advantage,” said the former head of the agency’s employees, for example, by officials to close the border in California Democraticled held Arizona GOP out and Texas. The President asked the leaders of China to make trading decisions that would strengthen the voters before the election in 2020, according to the former director of the National Security John Bolton Trump relationship with State Farm key. And, of course, Trump until the country’s political rival Trump was removed from office on charges of Fonte military aid from Ukraine eight months ago in part examined. The list goes on. If there are doubts had to put them on the reasons the administration of the so-called reform of the Post, the president seemed to be resting. $25 billion for the USPS and $3.5 billion for the additional choice resources in 13 interview with Fox Business August, the president said he has proposed to block the Democrats because the cost of the postal service handled an increase of voting electronic help this year, “need money to the post office to make it work, so that all these millions of ballots taken,” said Trump. “Well, if we do a deal, that is, they do not get the money. This means that they can not universal mail-in voting, they just can not have.” Less than a week after he announced DeJoy the suspension of much of of his reform program until after the elections “to prevent the occurrence of effects on mail elections”. But the damage has already been done. Whatever happens to the USPS in the coming months, Trump benefited doubts about the USPS and electronic voting and triggered a specter of impropriety during the basic practice of democracy. When the faith of Americans in the electoral process, voter dips polls forgiveness, and when Trump supporters do not believe their votes were counted fairly, they are less likely to accept an outcome in which no wins. Most Americans love the post, and rely on them, regardless of their politics. assessing more than 90% positive, the agency, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center 2020 George Washington looked like a national postal network as an amplifier of democratic ideals and egalitarianism that continues today: FedEx and UPS determines an award pin on letters thousands of miles away, and a letter from USPS shipped anywhere within the cost only 55 ¢ country. But as the new challenges in the post has experienced in recent years, lawmakers of both parties argued for reform. In 1970, after more than 150,000 postal workers went on strike for the supply of vital curb mail, Democraticled Congress oversees a USPS reorganization to degrade the Minister Council Poste of Ministers and it is critical support cuts taxpayers: the know Office when post, which is now financed through its own sales. With the advent of the Internet, these sales have plummeted. In 2001, the USPS moved more than 103.7 billion pieces of first-class mail; in 2019 the figure was almost half, to 55 billion euro. The increase in fuel prices and truck costs and an increase in the number of packages have exacerbated the problem. In 2006, Congress returned to the post, this time a bipartisan Senate approved mandate that the USPS has been approved benefits pre-funding health for its retirees and invests these funds in government-Bill unanimously , the offer dismal returns. It is a requirement that no other company, public or private, must meet, and costs the USPS more than $5 billion a year, about 7% of total operating costs. The request is responsible for a large part of the Agency’s annual deficit, according to its financial reports. Last year, USPS coincided $79.9 billion of spending and ended the year with $11 billion in debt. The parties have long been divided on how to remedy these shortcomings. For decades, Democrats accused Republicans mail in an attempt to sabotage to be privatized. Republicans deny the charge and its reform effort defended by pointing out it is not wrong when bleeding USPS budget. But then came the Trump administration, with its tendency to say high the quiet voice. In 2018, the White House suggested for the USPS a “future conversion of a government agency in a private company.” In the last five month battle relatively obscure political struggle has been transformed into a defined democracy. In April, Congress asked USPS for $75 billion dollars for the aid is the economic impact of the pandemic COVID-19. If the closed shops, the postal service has seen first-class mail, as more and more online Americans shopped its most profitable products declining, while the volume of packages to more power-rose labor-intensive. Democrats are pushing their latest bill relief USPS for more funding, but the White House has so far resisted. (End of July approved the Ministry of Finance, the Agency for $10 to borrow billions to very strict conditions.) In May DeJoy appointment to the top job post seemed to confirm the worst fears Democrats, what was it that had a ideological push to privatize Postal Service in an effort to choice for Trump turned to rock. DeJoy “has published guidelines for the conscious Postal Service sabotage a single person, the President Trump to serve,” said Representative Gerald Connolly of Virginia, the House subcommittee overseeing the USPS. Democratic lawmakers had no say in the appointment of DeJoy that more than $1.1 million donated to the Victory Fund Campaign Trump from August 2016 to February 2020 In normal circumstances, the Board of Governors USPS appointing the Postmaster General is bipartisan: President names to each of the nine Senate confirmed the mandate of seven members. But Senate Republicans blocked the candidate Obama inheriting a blank card so that Trump wants full of like-minded people. To avoid that the Democrats in Congress helplessly drawn to his apparent conflicts of interest incapable climb DeJoy. At the time he was appointed Minister of Posts, the GOP megadonor least $30 million in expected value of parts in a supply chain companies that raise the contracts with the USPS, ask if he violated ethics rules that officials participating business status that her avoid personal finances. DeJoy also holds stock options, which allow him to buy Amazon’s shares at a below-market rate. With the increase of the Amazon, the percentage of packages it offers and play with the idea of also Packages non-Amazon provide fast giant negotiation is a direct competitor are USPS. DeJoy announcement on August 18, which would have exposed his reform program until after the election of a good part, perhaps as a victory for the Democrats seems. In the coming weeks DeJoy will be hauled in front of both the House and Senate this summer for events at hearings and congressional investigation is ongoing. But politics is not so simple. DeJoy reversal left open a number of questions. What would happen to the tens of postal sorting machines and drop boxes that were dragged from? When overtime workers will be approved? We will publish its workers will be able to take more than one flight a day? When States have more expensive delays Porto buy evade? Without proactive measures for the delivery of mail protection, hundreds of thousands of entries can still end up in the trash. In 32 states, the cards must be received by Election Day, the legislature after an analysis of the National Conference of State. 65,000 ballots mailed During these primaries of the year were rejected for various reasons, according to NPR. While only about 1% is the vote in most states, according to the NPR analysis, small margins of the range in 2016, won Trump Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which had each of the margins of less than 1 %, but enough to claim 46 votes and the presidential administration. The best case scenario for the agency is that Congress remains its emergency funding, public scrutiny and DeJoy makes good on his promise, “choosing Post to deliver on time the nation.” But it can not be undone, what happened was. Discrediting the postal vote and post office Trump has already tainted the election results, whatever they are. After an Axios-Ipsos poll in August, 47% of voters Vice President Joe Biden said the support they planned to vote by mail, compared to only 11% of Trump supporters. If inequality is applied in November, the consequences could be bad for both sides. elderly and rural voters, who rely in the past on boards and email tend to support Republicans, they could be deterred from voting at all. Trump might seem before the night of the election with voters in person to be sent as disproportionately Democratic-mail cards must be overhauled, after days, weeks and slowly counted. It is not difficult, the damage that an election hanging, as the Bush-Gore 2000 debacle imagine, in the era of misinformation Trump-fed could accurately. Democracy, after all, not unlike flying in the world of Peter Pan; if you believe stop it, it ceases to work. -With reporting by Alana ABRAMSON This appears in the August 31, 2020 issue of time. illustration image copyright by Ben Wiseman for TIME
By entangling the post in dispute and shake confidence in electronic voting Americans, Trump Wins
