The role of the postal service in the US presidential elections has become the central issue of the electoral debate. In full confrontation with President Donald Trump over the legitimacy of voting by mail, Democrats have launched a campaign in favor of early voting, defending its special relevance in the face of the advance of the coronavirus pandemic. Following the mailing notice to the 50 states that there is a "significant risk" that the ballots to vote may not be processed in time for the November 3 elections, given the shortage of funds and personnel, Democrats have asked Americans should go to post offices as soon as the vote-by-mail application period opens.
Ballot mailing begins at the end of September and an estimated 80 million people use the postal service to vote. Trump has refused to authorize a $ 25 billion budget to modernize the postal service and has also prevented the allocation of an additional $ 3.6 billion to a special fund to finance voting by mail, as the Democrats had requested.
Its leader in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has called on legislators to interrupt the summer recess to vote on a law that prevents changes in the postal service before the elections.
This comes after the director of the USPS (Postal Service), Louis DeJoy, undertook a series of measures that have hampered postal operations, such as the suspension of overtime for workers, the decrease in the use of the official transport, the restriction on the use of electronic equipment to process mail and the freezing of new hires. DeJoy, a Republican businessman known for his generous donations to the Trump campaign, was appointed to the position last May.
Changes in the postal service have already created delays in mail deliveries. And in some localities, citizens have also denounced the removal of mailboxes. "Alarmingly, the postmaster general has acted as an accomplice in the president's campaign to cheat in the election as he launches radical new operational changes that degrade delivery standards and delay mail," Democrats noted in a release. The congressmen have asked DeJoy to appear to testify about the irregularities in the postal service next Monday the 24th. Some Democrats have even asked the FBI to investigate the director of the USPS.
Trump has defended DeJoy and has assured that the new measures serve to improve the USPS and "save it from disaster." Trump has insisted in recent months that voting by mail is fraudulent and allows identity theft, although he has not presented evidence of his allegations. The US president assured this Monday in an interview with Fox News that with the vote by mail "there will never be a fair presidential election." However, Trump has called for a vote-by-mail vote for his party's primary in Florida this week.