Local election offices reportedly received mailed ballots days after the deadline to be counted ‘in nearly every state’

State and local election officials from across the country on Wednesday warned that problems with the nation’s mail delivery system threaten to disenfranchise voters in the upcoming presidential election, telling the head of the US Postal Service (USPS) that it hasn’t fixed persistent deficiencies.

The officials said in a letter that over the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be counted.

They also noted that properly addressed election mail was being returned to them as undeliverable.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s complicated, and Congress is taking advantage of that to keep him there. The nine-member United States Postal Service Board of Governors has sole authority to fire, and hire, the Postmaster General. At the moment there are only 7 members, 3 Dems, 3 Reps, 1 Ind. 6 members are required for a quorum.

      Biden has 2 pending nominations and a pending reappointment of an existing governor. There are still 2 governors remaining from Trump’s administration at this point. The Senate confirmed 3 seats in July 2021 and 2 seats in May 2022, and nothing since. They seem to be doing the absolute bare minimum to intentionally delay any possible changes.

      Note that these are not full time government positions like the Postmaster. They only meet once a month usually.

      • WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        I thought the Democrats are in control of the Senate? Why delay on something that might hurt their own party’s seats?

        • DragonTypeWyvern
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          2 months ago

          That’s the neat part! They aren’t!

          Sinema and Manchin officially went Independent, plus there’s like half a dozen other neoliberals who are just as guilty of being rat fucking losers that got less press.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Because politics isn’t simple in reality, there are a lot of different reasons things are approved or not that may not even be relevant to the actual issue at hand.

          On top of that, the parties are very different on how they handle things. The Republican party generally will fall in line as a group, they treat politics very simply. Seemingly because they all have closets overflowing with skeletons that they’re all hiding for each other and they’ll be exposed if they don’t follow the group. You’re either part of the group and they’ll defend you at all costs, or they tear will you apart.

          The Democratic party on the other hand are like herding cats. They might be working towards the same general goal, maybe, but they won’t just fall in line because the group says they should.

            • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Don’t mistake the infighting over something that actually matters, for an inability to bully each other into being an obstruction to anything the Democrats want. Not electing a speaker is just as effective obstruction as well. As long as they don’t actually want to pass anything on their side, it’s arguably even more effective. And that’s their purpose. The current Republican platform is to be the exact opposite of the Dems, and whatever blurts out of Trump’s mouth at the moment.

              They don’t like each other, but they stand together being a wall for anything the Dems want to pass, regardless of what it is. At this point they’d probably vote against a nationwide abortion ban at conception with no exceptions if the Dems introduced the bill.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The Senate confirmed 3 seats in July 2021 and 2 seats in May 2022, and nothing since.

        Crazy. Who is the Senate Majority Leader right now?

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      Biden didn’t have the power to remove him and didn’t want to appear to act like the orange man. Politics getting in the way of Democracy.