A Rural Area with Moderate Politics

[Clodfobble]

The latest is that 10-13% of mail sorting machines (that each process over a million pieces a day) have been removed without explanation (or rather, the meaningless explanation of "equipment reduction") from dozens of major cities (on the one hand, all Dem strongholds, on the other, of course urban areas are where the machines are) and are being dismantled and destroyed despite functioning just fine. Also, dozens of blue mailboxes are being removed from the streets of NYC and Oregon due to insufficient use.

A firsthand account from a postal worker reports that he previously was given 2,000 pieces of mail per day to deliver, but with the re-organization and orders from on high to slow down processing, he's now getting between 200-600 per day. He's not working fewer hours, just delivering less mail than he's capable of right now. Mail that used to be sorted locally is now being sent to other cities and sometimes other states for processing, even if the delivery address is in the same city as it was posted from.

Numerous other reports, especially from renters who pay by check and seniors who get their meds through the mail, say that deliveries that took 2 days in the past are now taking 14 (and they are consequently running out of important things like insulin, because their health insurance A. requires mail-ordering and B. doesn't allow filling in advance.)

It's possible these are the inevitable growing pains of a restructure that will lead to more efficiency in the end. It's also possible this is deliberate. It should be noted that the majority of Amazon's deliveries are through the USPS.

[Undertoad]

removed without explanation (or rather, the meaningless explanation of "equipment reduction")

meaningless?

The amount of mail handled by the USPS is down by a third in this decade alone. It's not coming back, half of us pay our bills online now. I hope the USPS is offloading equipment and changing blue box routes.

[Flint]

are you not done reading the rest, or did you just stop there?

[Undertoad]

Go fuck yourself

[Flint]

so to sum up your theory bad things are fake

[Ibby]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...381_story.html:

Postal Service warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots

Anticipating an avalanche of absentee ballots, the U.S. Postal Service recently sent detailed letters to 46 states and D.C. warning that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted — adding another layer of uncertainty ahead of the high-stakes presidential contest.

The letters sketch a grim possibility for the tens of millions of Americans eligible for a mail-in ballot this fall: Even if people follow all of their state’s election rules, the pace of Postal Service delivery may disqualify their votes.

The Postal Service’s warnings of potential disenfranchisement came as the agency undergoes a sweeping organizational and policy overhaul amid dire financial conditions. Cost-cutting moves have already delayed mail delivery by as much as a week in some places, and a new decision to decommission 10 percent of the Postal Service’s sorting machines sparked widespread concern the slowdowns will only worsen. Rank-and-file postal workers say the move is ill-timed and could sharply diminish the speedy processing of flat mail, including letters and ballots.

With the caveat that obviously democratic voting strongholds tend to be population centers, so this is correlation but hypothetically not causation, people on twitter have overlaid that map with the pro-hillary margin in 2016:



as one of the authors of the article pointed out on twitter:

One word of caution. A lot of folks are looking at the map and saying these removals are targeted at Dem. strongholds. We don't know that. Dem. strongholds tend to be population centers. The removals may simply be following population patterns.

But on the other hand we don't *not* know that either because USPS hasn't provided any clear public rationale for why they're doing what they're doing

At the very least, making this kind of radical overhaul to a critical system in an unprecedented election year seems like a very iffy proposition. It's not clear why all these changes have to be done *right now*, rather than postponing them a year given the pandemic.

all of which, again, i would say serves fundamentally to erode public trust in the voting process and muddy the election waters. unless its an inarguable blowout landslide victory for either side, neither side is going to have faith in any result. that scares the shit outta me.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

meaningless?

The amount of mail handled by the USPS is down by a third in this decade alone. It's not coming back, half of us pay our bills online now. I hope the USPS is offloading equipment and changing blue box routes.

Only makes sense if the equipment was sitting idle or under-used, though. According to people who work in those post offices, they were in steady use, and this is part of why mail delivery that used to take 2 days takes 14.

Like I said, it's entirely possible this is only step one of a larger process, and they'll be replaced with bigger, more efficient machines at the new designated hubs, and it ultimately will make sense for a letter to travel 500 miles away just to get sorted and travel back to the same city. But right now, at least, there are measurable delays and problems in a service that used to work.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Naw

When examining the numbers for the states, please use https://rt.live/ . For individual states the "Adjusted Positive Tests & Implied Infections" curve at the bottom. That shows what is actually happening.

The majority of states now have a decreasing infection rate...!

A wild number of variables at play here, but seasonality is going to remain a big one, as all the southern states rose at the same time (and now the western European states are having their second wave at the height of their summers) (and now Minnesota)

Meanwhile, NYC is at least 25% immune and went over an enormous mountain to get there, but has not seen a second wave. It's figured maybe this is enough herd immunity to keep it at bay, at the current level of restricted social distancing.

school is starting back up, colleges are opening, fall is coming... you're more optimistic than i am about that, clearly, but i sure think things are about to get even worse before they get better unless serious steps are taken

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Griff

A Rural Area with Moderate Politics...

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

... Mail that used to be sorted locally is now being sent to other cities and sometimes other states for processing, even if the delivery address is in the same city as it was posted from. ...

A Rural Area with Moderate Politics near a Major USPS Processing Center.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Go fuck yourself

How curious. That is exactly how Donald Trump thinks. And his disciple Urbane Guerrilla.

[sexobon]

Undertrump?
Urbanetoad?

[Undertoad]

There's always an explanation, sometimes it is malice sometimes not; bad reporters just go with the narrative, good reporters ask more questions until they get to the explanation

https://katu.com/news/local/photo-ab...acing-old-ones

[Ibby]

replace them when is an important question i think

"we asked them and they said don't worry about it" isn't a very satisfying explanation imo

[sexobon]

Postal Service will stop removing mailboxes

The removal of dozens of mailboxes in a handful of states set off a social media panic and some high-profile attention this week, but the U.S. Postal Service said the iconic blue boxes are just being moved to higher-volume areas. ...

... The agency said it would stop removing the boxes nationally until after the election. ...

... The Postal Service has close to 142,000 mailboxes across the country, and removes or relocates them on a case-by-case basis, according to agency spokesperson Kimberly Frum. ...

... “Historically, mailboxes have been removed for lack of use and installed in growth areas,” she said in an emailed statement. “When a collection box consistently receives very small amounts of mail for months on end, it costs the Postal Service money in fuel and work hours for letter carriers to drive to the mailbox and collect the mail. Removing the box is simply good business sense in that respect. It is important to note that anyone with a residential or business mailbox can use it as a vehicle to send outgoing mail." ...

The agency has focused in recent years on placing boxes in high-traffic areas such as shopping centers, business parks and outside grocery stores, she said, and removing them from low-traffic areas. ...

[Griff]

The agency has focused in recent years on placing boxes in high-traffic areas such as shopping centers, business parks and outside grocery stores, she said, and removing them from low-traffic areas. ...

So do we move them to Amazon warehouses?