Inside the looming postal disaster that could ruin the US election

protest - Reuters
protest - Reuters

The US Postal Service is facing unprecedented delays which could upend the election on November 3, mail workers have told The Daily Telegraph.

Sorting machines which process ballots have been removed and scrapped, mail collection boxes have been taken away, and one depot was so backed up it "looked like Armageddon" inside.

Thousands of baby chicks being sent to farms through the post have died and rats have been roaming processing centres filled with the stench of rotting food deliveries, according to union workers.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic there is expected to be an explosion in mail-in voting, with 80 million Americans predicted to send their ballot through the post.

But in June, Louis DeJoy, the new postmaster general, who has donated over $2 million to the campaigns of Donald Trump and other Republicans, began instituting drastic cuts.

That included removing high-speed mail sorting machines, and blue collection boxes, cutting overtime, and ordering trucks to leave plants on schedule even if there was mail still to be loaded.

Under pressure from Democrats, and the public, Mr DeJoy announced on Aug 18 that he was suspending those cuts until after the election. But postal workers said the damage has already been done and is not being reversed.

Michael Cinelli, 46, a postal service driver, told The Daily Telegraph: "I'm on my way to the sorting office right now. Now we get a certain amount of time to pick up and leave. Sometimes you have to go out with nothing on your truck because nothing's been processed.

"The problem starts with processing. If the mail doesn't get brought down from there to transportation in time, then it doesn't go. It might be the elevator gets delayed, or the elevator doors are open but you have to leave the mail in the elevator because it's time to go. I've seen nothing like it before. We used to just wait for them to finish processing."

Mr Cinelli said he didn't know if the postal service would be able to handle the deluge of expected mail-in ballots for the election.

"Until it happens we just can't tell," he said. "We don't know what volume's going to come through. We can't predict it. I'd like to predict the lotto numbers but I can't."

The mail is not getting processed quickly enough at depots around the country because, according to the American Postal Workers Union, Mr DeJoy's cuts involved decommissioning 671 mail sorting machines, about 13 per cent of the national total, this year.

It said 618 of those machines were to be taken offline by Aug 1. That included 59 and 34 in the key states of Florida and Ohio respectively.

The vast majority of the machines were massive "delivery bar code sorters," known as DBCSs, which can each sift up to 35,000 pieces of mail an hour.

When Mr DeJoy suspended the cuts, according to workers at sorting offices across the US, many of the machines had already been dismantled and are not now being brought back ahead of the election.

DeJoy - Postal Service
DeJoy - Postal Service

Omar Gonzalez, Western regional coordinator for the American Postal Workers Union, said five machines had gone from a sorting office in Sacramento, and six in San Diego, and the mail backed up so badly "we had reports of dead animals and related smells."

Following Mr DeJoy's suspension of cuts he visited a sorting office where three of the six machines had gone.

He said: "They'd already been scrapped. A contractor came and took them away. They're not coming back. The postmaster general is not restoring, he's just standing still for now. Yes it means less capacity, yes it does slow down the mail."

Local union representatives said, in recent weeks, seven machines had vanished or been switched off at a sorting office in Charlotte, North Carolina, and 12 more in Pontiac, Michigan.

They had been told not to switch back on the ones that were turned off and still present at the sorting offices.

The postal service itself has declined to allow the media inside any sorting offices.

But Sumi Ali, who runs a fine coffee business and regularly takes shipments into a particularly huge depot in Los Angeles, said it "looked like Armageddon" inside.

In June, seven of the 10 delivery bar code sorters were removed, leading to backups. At one point the whole building was filled with gnats, and there were rats, according to workers.

Mr Ali said: "We've been going to that sorting office for a decade. The building is massive. It was wall to wall, tens of thousands of containers full up with mail and packages and no room left to squeeze through.

"I've never seen it like that before, it was a shock. I just thought 'Is our business going to be OK?' and I haven't slept. We rely on the postal service. This is like being kneecapped. We love USPS, it's one of the greatest American institutions, but this is absolutely out of their [the workers] hands."

Cindy Heyward, legislative director for the American Postal Workers Union in Philadelphia, told The Daily Telegraph: "60 days in [to Mr DeJoy's tenure] we've had extreme mail delays. He said he came to help the post office but he's not been allowing us to get the mail out. This is a campaign in hopes of dismantling the post office.

"He's currently claiming that the mail will get out and we will manage the election. I don't believe that's true. We are not going to be able to get the mail delivered because, first of all, we have to reinstall the [sorting] machines. We have to put back the blue collection boxes. But he has no intention of doing that. The damage is already done.

"We're going to have 80 million or more mail-in ballots. We can't sort that mail by hand, we need those sorting machines."

post - AP
post - AP

Mr Trump has repeatedly suggested the pandemic-related rise in mail-in voting will lead to chaos and a delayed election result.

His opponents have accused him, and Mr DeJoy, of trying to sabotage the post office because more Democrats than Republicans are expected to vote by mail.

Both men have vociferously denied the allegation and said the reason for making cuts to the post office is because it makes vast losses - about $70 billion over the last decade.

Whatever the reason, Democrats stand to lose out most if postal ballots fail to make it in time to be counted.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found nearly half Joe Biden's supporters plan to vote by mail, while just 11 per cent of Mr Trump's intend to.

Some Democrat activists have become so concerned they are telling supporters not to risk a postal vote.

Joe Foster, the party chairman in Montgomery County, in the key state of Pennsylvania, said: "We are considering telling voters that, if they haven’t mailed out their complete ballot by October 15, don’t bother. Instead, vote in person. We want to make sure every vote counts."

On Saturday, Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat House speaker, recalled members of Congress to debate the crisis.

The House passed a bill to give the postal service $25 billion in emergency funding.

However, the Republican-held Senate will not pass it, and Mr Trump has said he will veto it.

The weekend also saw protests at hundreds of post offices around the United States, and outside Mr DeJoy's home in Washington, as part of "Save the Post Office Saturday".

Meanwhile, Mr DeJoy has been summoned to appear before the Democrat-led House oversight and reform committee in Congress on Monday.