The 2020 election is right around the corner, but no one can agree on how people should vote. The controversy first flared up in late July, when President Trump wondered on Twitter whether to “Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” This understandably earned the ire of many citizens and legislators from both parties.
In response to these remarks, some policymakers have been pushing hard for providing tens of billions of dollars in funding for the U.S. Postal Service to facilitate mail-in voting.
Despite the dire pronouncements of lawmakers and rampant fearmongering and misinformation, the beleaguered agency does have the resources to handle the temporary influx of mail. Most voting will likely be in person anyway, and social distancing can ensure a safe experience for voters. But even if “just” half of all voting is done via mail, the USPS will have to assure voters that their ballots will be safely and securely processed. Now is the time for postal reform, not a blank check from taxpayers or more excuses from Congress and USPS leadership.
Over the past few rounds of coronavirus-related stimulus negotiations, lawmakers have insisted that the USPS be given enough funding to handle a national election. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has prioritized “supporting vote-by-mail in a very important way” in relief legislation, and House Democrats are pushing hard for $25 billion in emergency funding for the USPS. While state and local leaders have voiced concern with the beleaguered agency ceasing operations altogether this year, that fear has no basis in reality. According to the agency’s own financial reporting, the USPS has sufficient liquidity to keep delivering mail through August 2021. And it’s unlikely that a significant vote-by-mail effort will break the bank for the USPS.
According to a July 2020 analysis by R Street associate fellow Nick Zaiac, “although vote by mail requires a letter to be sent and received — two distinct movements per mail piece, both of which happen in a relatively short period of time — in an electorate of between 150 and 250 million, that is no more than 500 million letters.” Even if double that amount of mail were required to facilitate the election, the total number of mail pieces sent and received would be a drop in the bucket compared to overall USPS volume. In 2019, first-class mail (i.e. letter) volume totaled 54.9 billion mail pieces. Even an entirely vote-by-mail election would bump mail volume by less than 2%. And given that the agency’s mail volume has declined by more than 2 billion mail pieces per year since 2010, we know that the USPS can handle the extra load.
But even though the Postal Service can accommodate this increased volume, reforms will be needed to ensure a smooth election. The struggling agency has far more processing equipment and collection boxes than it needs, and this excess network capacity diverts critical manpower away from tasks such as handling election mail. Even before Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s term, the agency was removing more than 2,000 collection boxes a year in order to allocate labor more efficiently. But these efforts didn’t go far enough. The Inspector General noted in 2016 that “removing unnecessary collection boxes throughout the Eastern Area would eliminate 73,043 workhours over the next 5 years.” These freed-up work hours could significantly speed up the collection and processing of election mail. But due to a slew of misinformation and congressional pressure, the Postal Service has stopped collection box and equipment removals for the time being.
Lawmakers should give Postal Service leadership the flexibility it needs to do its job and prepare for the election. But even if the agency continues to “rationalize” its network, it will struggle as long as it continues to overpay underperforming contractors and underpriced packages. The agency has started to reform pricing, but wider changes will not happen without full pricing and cost transparency.
There’s no need (or legal rationale) to delay this critical presidential election. But there’s absolutely a need to reform the USPS and hold the agency accountable for its lackluster service. The nation’s elected leaders must commit to postal reform by Nov. 3.
Ross Marchand is vice president of Policy for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
