The news comes after USPS leadership received a sweeping set of orders from a federal judge on Tuesday, laying out steps the Postal Service must take to ensure that ballots are delivered quickly as voters face absentee voting deadlines.
On Friday, the USPS said that it will collect mail on Sunday for some routes (there is typically no Sunday collection), and conduct early collections on Monday and Tuesday with ballot delivery to election offices on the same day. Local carriers will also check for outgoing mail at "every residential mailbox." This is in addition to approving overtime hours, including for some people working maxed-out 12-hour shifts.
The agency also said that it will create special lines at post offices, including drive-thru options, for people who want their ballot postmarked and mailed. This means people with ballots will be prioritized. USPS will also facilitate after-hours "handoffs" of ballots to election offices. These handoffs will occur after the post office closes for the day but before the polls close, so ballots can still be counted.
Also, the USPS said it will try to intercept any ballots with misprinted barcodes that determine where the mail is funneled through the USPS system. If these issues are caught early, it would speed up processing times.
Ballot processing slowing down in key states
Meanwhile, court filings on Friday show that the agency's issues moving ballots on time in key states also dragged down national processing scores, which measure how many ballots were moved through the postal system on-time. The number for completed ballots being returned to election offices dropped on Thursday, as did the number of blank ballots still heading to voters.
Because Election Day is less than one week away, these processing scores are taking on even greater importance. Dips in performance could mean ballots don't arrive to election offices in time to get counted. In more than half of the states, mail ballots don't count if they arrive after the polls close.
In all, USPS says it processed more than 1.7 million ballots on Thursday. But USPS says that on a national level, they moved fewer ballots on time on Thursday than on Wednesday, the score dropping from 97% to 95%. The numbers were even worse in some of the most critical battlegrounds.
The Central Pennsylvania district scored the lowest, moving only 71% of ballots on time Thursday. In the Detroit area, they only moved 80% of the ballots on time. Northern Ohio, central Florida, parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the Mid-Carolinas also saw numbers well below the national average -- in the mid-80s.
These figures do not include ballots being returned through what USPS calls "local turnaround." That's the process USPS says some post offices have implemented, where ballots are being delivered directly to local boards of election -- they are postmarked, but don't go through normal mail processing.
In a court filing on Friday, USPS blamed the latest delays on staffing shortages due to Covid-19.
"The Postal Service has seen issues with staffing availability arise in the identified Districts due to the COVID-19 pandemic, among other reasons," USPS said. "At the same time that staffing unavailability has become a factor, there has been an increase volume in package and market dominant products."
To fix the issues, USPS has provided "multiple layers of operational oversight," is coordinating closely with the USPS inspector general, and has been holding daily troubleshooting calls with problem areas.
"to" - Google News
October 31, 2020 at 04:59AM
https://ift.tt/2TB69oJ
USPS announces 'extraordinary measures' to deliver ballots on time - CNN
"to" - Google News
https://ift.tt/368wPko
https://ift.tt/3dnyzdH
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "USPS announces 'extraordinary measures' to deliver ballots on time - CNN"
Post a Comment