CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Postal service workers in New Hampshire can sort and deliver the mail, including election ballots, despite facing challenges like loss of equipment, revenue, and staff, union representatives said Tuesday.
“I think there’s a lot of disinformation out there about the ballots and mail-in voting,” Terry Gesel of the state branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers said during a call with U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. “I’ve delivered mail 29 years. … We know how they handle the mail-in ballots. They’re secure. They are taken right to your town halls.”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, an ally of President Donald Trump who took control of the agency in June, swiftly engineered cuts and operational changes that are disrupting mail delivery operations as millions of Americans prepare to vote by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, DeJoy said he would “suspend” his initiatives until after the election “to avoid even the appearance of impact on election mail.”
Trump denied he was asking for a slow-walk of the mail. But last week, he made it clear that he was blocking $25 billion emergency aid to the Postal Service, acknowledging he wanted to curtail election mail operations.
Among the changes in New Hampshire, five mail sorting machines have been targeted for elimination at the postal distribution center in Manchester, said Dana Coletti, president of the American Postal Workers Union in the state.
“It just seems a little unusual that around an election time they would start reducing machines, where the service has, if anything, increased its necessity with the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Carletti noted that current package deliveries, for example, are up nearly 30% to 40% over last year. “This is Christmas-time volumes,” he said.
The union representatives are calling for funding.
The postal service “wasn’t created to be a political issue, and we can’t let that happen,” said Janice Kelkbe, legislative director of the postal workers union.
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