The Vote To Preserve The Post Office

By · Aug 29, 2020 · 6 min read

On August 22nd, the US House of Representatives voted to provide additional funding for the US Postal Service. The “Delivering for America Act” mandates that many of the changes enacted by the USPS since January 1, 2020, will be rolled back; these include any closing or reducing the hours of any post office or mail collection box, restricting overtime by postal workers, treating election mail as anything other than first-class mail, removing mail sorting machines, and any change to service which would delay the delivery of mail. The bill provides $25 billion in additional funding to the USPS in order to meet these requirements.

However, the bill is unlikely to pass in the Senate and has already been threatened with a presidential veto. Trump has claimed that widespread use of mail-in ballots would lead to fraud, and stated that he opposed additional funding to the USPS so that it could not process large numbers of mailed ballots: “Now they need that money in order to have the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots…if they don’t get those items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

While mailed ballots are not impervious to fraud, cases are very rare. Data from the 2016 and 2018 elections in states which already conducted full vote-by-mail elections (in this case, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington) found only 372 possible fraud cases out of over 14.6 million ballots cast. If every adult in the United States—not just every voter, but every adult—voted by mail, this would suggest that there could be 8,362 possible cases with 209.1 million ballots cast, for a rate of 0.0025%, assuming these statistics hold for the likely-higher-turnout 2020 presidential election.

And mail-in ballots have safeguards. As the Pacific Standard details:

In Oregon, both the absentee envelope and ballot have a barcode unique to each voter, and in the larger counties, like Marion, a machine scans for any discrepancies between the two, or any duplicate barcodes. Then, a team of election workers trained in forensic handwriting analyzes the ballot signatures to verify the identification of the voter, who has two weeks to prove her identity should the signature be contested.

During this process, “everything that is happening is on camera at all times,” says Tayleranne Gillespie, the communications director for the Oregon Secretary of State. “No one’s ever by themselves counting ballots. It’s always done in bipartisan teams.”

That doesn’t mean that no fraud exists, of course. It’s often more common at local election levels, where races are closer and decided by fewer ballots; the East Chicago Democratic primary was re-run after the Indiana Supreme Court called it “a widespread and pervasive pattern … to cast unlawful and deceptive ballots.” Supporters of the Democratic incumbent, Robert Pastrick, had encouraged others to vote absentee and completed their ballots for the preferred candidate, and several city officials were charged with election fraud.

At the federal level, a US House election in North Carolina’s 9th district in 2018 had to be repeated after a consultant for the Republican candidate delivered absentee ballots in violation of federal law (third parties other than postal workers are not allowed to handle ballots or ballot applications), and admitted to filling out blank portions of the absentee ballots for Republican candidates.

But the race was never certified, and cases such as that are still a rarity—this was the first, and currently only, federal election ever where the race had to be repeated due to fraud, and the discrepancies were noticed within days of the election. Polling and population statistics allow any oddities—such as white voters’ absentee ballots being returned at twice the rate of Black voters’, or winning a county’s absentee vote at a much higher than expected margin—to be seen and investigated. And since mail-in and absentee ballots leave a verifiable paper trail, some government cybersecurity experts, such as Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have said that vote-by-mail (VBM) elections will actually increase election integrity.

Nor do VBM elections favor one party over another. A recent BYU study found that VBM increased voter turnout by 2-3 percentage points in presidential and midterm races, but “has no effect on election outcomes at various levels of government”. And, in the wake of the pandemic, many states from across the political spectrum haveadopted some semblance of mailed ballots—Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts, among others, will mail every registered voter an application for a ballot.

These changes are perhaps what led to a notable amount of bipartisanship in the bill’s final passage. 26 Republicans broke ranks and voted to pass along with 231 of the chamber’s 232 Democratic members (the lone not-voting member of the Democratic caucus was Tulsi Gabbard, HI-02, currently fulfilling her two-week Army duty requirement with the Hawaii National Guard in Alaska). In doing so, many of those Republicans spoke of its benefits to their more rural constituents:

“The U.S. Postal Service plays a critical role in our nation’s commerce and economy, and in delivering mail to all Americans, especially to those living in rural communities.” -Don Bacon, NE-02.

“We all know the Postal Service is one of our greatest institutions, and has been ever since we developed the Constitution.” -Don Young, AK-AL.

“Tasked with delivering vital medicine to seniors and last mile service for rural counties, the post office is a critical service for the constituents of TX-10.” -Michael McCaul, TX-10.

“The United States Postal Service plays a vital role in the lives of my constituents, particularly those in rural communities, from ensuring their ballots are counted to paying their bills and receiving lifesaving medication.” -Steve Stivers, OH-15.

Especially in rural areas, many of which lack reliable broadband connection, the Postal Service remains a pillar of the community, a secure, cheap and effective link to the larger world. In rural locations, where commercial carriers like FedEx, UPS, and Amazon will inflate their prices or simply refuse to deliver because doing so is not cost-effective, it’s the USPS which delivers packages the “last mile” to their destination. A 2011 analysis noted that “Without such service, the businesses located in rural areas will be paying about $3.00 more per parcel and the people residing in such rural areas will be paying about $5.45 ($3.00 for Ext. DAS [Delivery Area Surcharges] and $2.45 for ground residential) more per parcel, or both businesses and consumers will be limited in ordering for direct delivery to their address.”

A table showing the cost of delivery for packages through UPS, FedEx, and USPS for rural areas.

But limiting that service has its own dangers—many seniors and residents of rural communities receive vital medications through the mail, and delays in the mail could mean that prescriptions run out before the next shipment arrives. Rob Larew, president of the National Farmers Union, writes “USPS is frequently the only affordable and convenient way to receive medication in rural areas — and…disruptions or delays could literally mean the difference between life or death.”

So why did so many rural Republicans vote against providing funding for the Postal Service?

The CityLab analysis of congressional district density found 70 districts which it classified as “purely rural”: “a mix of very rural areas and small cities with some suburban-style areas”. These are the districts which would be most affected by any changes to the USPS, and are overwhelmingly represented by Republicans, who hold 60 of those 70 districts. In many ways, these districts are the base of the GOP—they overwhelmingly voted for Trump over Clinton, 63-37, and have shifted ever more Republican over the past few years.

And yet of those 60 rural Republicans, only 5 voted to extend funding for the postal service.

Republicans Voting ‘Yes’ And How Their Districts Are Classified:

  • Don Bacon* (NE-02)—dense suburban
  • Peter King (NY-02)—dense suburban
  • Ann Wagner* (MO-02)—dense suburban

 

  • Troy Balderson (OH-12)—sparse suburban
  • Vern Buchanan (FL-16)—sparse suburban
  • Brian Fitzpatrick* (PA-01)—sparse suburban
  • David Joyce (OH-14)—sparse suburban
  • Chris Smith (NJ-04)—sparse suburban
  • Mike Turner (OH-10)—sparse suburban

 

  • Mike Bost (IL-12)—rural-suburban mix
  • Rodney Davis* (IL-13)—rural-suburban mix
  • Jeff Fortenberry (NE-01)—rural-suburban mix
  • Sam Graves (MO-06)—rural-suburban mix
  • Jaime Herrera Beutler* (WA-03)—rural-suburban mix
  • Will Hurd (TX-23)—rural-suburban mix
  • John Katko* (NY-24)—rural-suburban mix
  • Doug LaMalfa (CA-01)—rural-suburban mix
  • Michael McCaul (TX-10)—rural-suburban mix
  • Steve Stivers (OH-15)—rural-suburban mix
  • Fred Upton* (MI-06)—rural-suburban mix
  • Jeff Van Drew* (NJ-02)—rural-suburban mix

 

  • Pete Stauber (MN-08)—pure rural
  • Elise Stefanik (NY-21)—pure rural
  • David McKinley (WV-01)—pure rural
  • Tom Reed (NY-23)—pure rural
  • Don Young* (AK-AL)—pure rural

Those marked with an asterisk are facing competitive re-election races in the 2020 general election.

Most likely, their votes are due to partisan polarization; these districts, as the base of a Republican Party which has aligned itself with Trump, are unfavorable to representatives who buck the president: in 2018, the rural NC-09 ousted its Republican incumbent, Robert Pittenger, in the primary over a perceived failure to support Trump’s immigration policies. Trump has vowed to veto the funding bill if it passes the Senate and called it a “HOAX by the Democrats to give 25 Billion unneeded dollars for political purposes”, meaning that congressional Republicans who wished to stay in their party’s good graces had a clear political incentive to vote against the bill.

But the political contrast remains striking. Rural districts cover wide swaths of the central and eastern United States, but a wide majority saw their representatives vote against funding for a service they rely upon:

A map showing how the representatives of the 70 rural districts in the US voted. (55 Republicans voted no, 5 voted yes, along with all 10 Democratic representatives)

Colored districts are the 70 districts classified as “pure rural” by the CityLab analysis, while the greyed-out districts are not.

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