To “avoid even the appearance of any impact” on the November election, US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced he has suspended all postal service reforms until after the vote, amid protests demanding his resignation.
“The Postal Service is ready today to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives this fall,” DeJoy said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that the reforms he was appointed to implement will be postponed “until after the election is concluded” to avoid any appearance they might interfere with the vote.
BREAKING: USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says in a statement of his delay-causing policy changes: “To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded.”
While “significant reforms” are required to ensure the “long-term sustainability” of the USPS, they will begin after the November 3 election, DeJoy said. In addition to suspending the reform work, the USPS will “engage standby resources” as of October 1 to satisfy any “unforeseen demand.”
Whether that means the USPS will be able to scale up operations from processing regular absentee ballots to dealing with orders of magnitude larger volume of universal mail-in voting, DeJoy did not specify.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) reacted by demanding a permanent reversal of all of DeJoy’s “harmful” policies, as well as the first-class treatment for all election materials.
The postmaster-general’s announcement comes amid a weeklong campaign by mainstream media and the Democrats, accusing DeJoy and President Donald Trump of “sabotaging” the USPS, because of the White House’s opposition to universal mail-in ballots.
Amid hysterical speculation about “disappearing mailboxes,” which the USPS denied, demonstrators picketed DeJoy’s home over the weekend, demanding his resignation.
The claim that Trump was trying to “defund” the USPS stems from his rejection of the Democrat proposal to give $25 billion in additional funding to the USPS for the purpose of universal mail-in voting in November. The funding was part of a proposed coronavirus relief bill that went nowhere after the Democrats and the GOP failed to reach an agreement.
To assure the Democrats that the election will be fully supported by the USPS, DeJoy said he would expand the “current leadership taskforce on election mail” to include leaders of postal unions and management associations.
The largest of these unions, the National Association of Letter Carriers, endorsed Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden last week.
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