The House of Representatives held an unusual session this Saturday to pass a law that would allocate $ 25 billion in emergency funds to the Postal Service and prohibit changes to the postal system before the November elections.
The measure passed 257 in favor and 150 against, so the Democratic side, which has 232 legislators, was able to attract the support of several Republicans. However, the law would still need to be approved by the Republican-majority Senate, and President Donald Trump has said he will veto the measure.
The proposal was promoted by congressmen from the Democratic Party who accuse the Trump Administration of altering the operation of the postal agency when it is not urgent to do so, and at a time when it could leave without the possibility of voting to millions of Americans who will prefer that method to go to a box for fear of contagion of COVID-19.
The postal policy changes, which include reducing post office hours and removing mailboxes to deposit letters, were implemented in recent weeks by Louis DeJoy, who was appointed to the post in June. DeJoy is a Republican campaign giver and until recently ran a logistics company that grew up on a government contract with the Postal Service.
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The government argues that the changes are due to the fact that the amount of mail has fallen sharply in recent months during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the USPS is losing money.
Although Trump himself has explicitly acknowledged that he does not want the USPS to have more funds because he dislikes voting by mail and considers that there may be fraud with it. Specialists indicate that there is no evidence that ballots sent in this way promote electoral scams.
Absentee voting, as suffrage is called with a ballot that is sent to the domicile of registered voters,
The law approved this Saturday also seeks that no more mail sorting machines or public mailboxes can be removed - more than 600 have been removed this year, much more than the average of past years - and the measure will require that all official mail from the elections are considered "first class".
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The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, assured that the Postal Service will be " the center of the elections " as millions of Americans will opt for the ballots of vote by mail to avoid the voting centers due to pandemic.
The lower house met for this vote despite the plan being to return to work by mid-September.
DeJoy testified in the Senate on Friday, saying his "number one priority" is to make sure election mail arrives on time, although several states had received recent warnings that mail ballots would not be processed on time.
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Aug. 21, 202000: 28DeJoy still said on Friday that the Postal Service had "adequate capacity" to handle ballot shipments for the November elections, and that they would take priority over other correspondence as in previous elections.
The postal service manager will testify again this Monday, now before the House of Representatives Oversight Committee.
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Although President Trump has said he plans to veto the law passed this Saturday by the representatives, there is another measure that could underpin the postal service in the near future.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican, is considering a $ 10 billion postal bailout as part of the next aid package for people affected by the COVID-19 crises. The White House has said it would be open to more postal funding as part of a larger bill.
With information from AP and The Washington Post.