Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has a message for America: The US Postal Service is ready for a deluge of election mail and is in a better position than it was four years ago.
The Postal Service has been undergoing rapid changes, including the opening of large centers, but some of those changes are being put on hold before the election so as not to disrupt performance, DeJoy said. And everything is in place to ensure that the millions of mail-in ballots are quickly delivered to their destination.
– We will be in excellent shape in the elections. I’m pretty confident about everything that did,” DeJoy told The Associated Press ahead of Thursday’s official announcement of election mail practices. “The American people should be confident.”
It’s a far cry from four years ago, when DeJoy, who had only been on the job for a few months, was criticized as a Donald Trump crony who dismantled mail processing machines and removed blue mailboxes to undermine Trump’s election as president. time sowed distrust in the postal service. Despite the crush, DeJoy’s Postal Service fared admirably during the pandemic under advance voting.
If anything was learned from the painful experience, he said, Posti had to be bolder in its communication.
“We need to be more vocal in communicating how well we’re doing and that things will be fine. Things will be fine. We are in a better operating position than ever before, he said.
U.S. postal officials told reporters Thursday of measures to ensure the delivery of election mail, based on its performance in 2020, when 97.9% of ballots were returned to election officials within three days, and in 2022, when 98.9% of ballots were returned. the election post was delivered within three days. DeJoy said he wants to get closer to 100% this election season.
The lack of drama is a welcome relief from four years ago, when the postal service was beset by backlogs and allegations of voter suppression ahead of the 2020 presidential election, in which more than 135 million ballots were delivered to and from voters.
DeJoy was criticized for limiting overtime pay for postal workers and ending the agency’s longstanding practice of allowing late and extra truck deliveries in the summer of 2020. And the previously planned dismantling of dozens of mail sorting machines and the removal of blue boxes, equivalent to a huge drop in first-class mail, provided further fuel for critics. The postmaster general, a major donor to Trump, was believed to be on thin ice, especially with the election of Democratic President Joe Biden.
“It was sensational. It scared the American people,” DeJoy said.
Reflecting on the period, he said the allegations were “just crazy” and particularly frustrating when he was working seven days a week after taking over an organization that ran out of cash in 60 days.
“We got through it. The organization worked very well. After that I started working on both sides of the aisle. My main job now is to make this place better. And we have made this place better,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, a frequent critic of changes under DeJoy, said Thursday he was confident Postal Service employees “will make sure every mail-in ballot is delivered safely.” But the Virginia Democrat also said that oversight is important and that “Congress needs to remain vigilant about the decisions that the postmaster makes in the days leading up to this election.”
The Postal Service continues a 10-year, $40 billion postal service modernization plan that will rehabilitate aging facilities, open modern regional hubs in Georgia, Virginia, Oregon and elsewhere and begin the process of purchasing 100,000 vehicles to replace aging delivery trucks. from 1987. The next generation delivery truck was presented on Thursday in Indiana at a separate event, the purpose of which was to promote Posti’s investments.
The Postal Service also showed it can make changes when it abandoned a criticized plan to route mail processing in the Reno, Nevada area to Sacramento, California, which had caused an uproar among Northern Nevada residents.
If there’s anything the public can do to help, DeJoy said, it would be to avoid delays in sending out ballots. “Vote early! If you use the mail, please help us,” he said.
