After touring a sorting facility in Hartford Thursday, Senator Richard Blumenthal said he’s more worried than ever about the United States Postal Service’s ability to handle mail for this year’s election. He said postal workers hoped that new sorting machines would replace ones recently removed, to help them do their jobs more efficiently.
Blumenthal arrived early at the 141 Weston Street facility for a tour of the Post Office’s sorting equipment. Press were not allowed to join in an effort to keep address information secure. But footage of the tour provided by Blumenthal’s team provided some insights into the tour.
John Wezenski, Senior Plant Manager, said the facility has sorting machines of many vintages but they try to keep the newest ones, phase 6, running the most frequently. He added that staff pull election mail out of normal mail to fast track it. Wezenski said the Hartford facility did so during the August Primary so that mail on track to be delivered in two days would arrive a day earlier.
Complicating matters, Wezenski said, is that ballots from Western Massachusetts sometimes end up for sorting in Hartford. A large bin of Massachusetts ballots could be seen in video provided. Staff are trained to recognize the mail and set it aside for delivery. A large bin collecting the ballots read "do not delay."
"Those machines are antiquated, they need to be replaced, the postal service ought to be replacing those machines and others in this facility that are 20 years old," Blumenthal said, alluding to recent actions by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. "For some of those machines, they’re not even making spare parts anymore."
Sorting machines across the country were taken apart earlier this year as part of DeJoy’s efforts as recently installed Postmaster General. According to Postal Service union members, the machines in Hartford were taken apart and put in the parking lot. Blumenthal said that workers were in support of removing old machines and replacing them with new machines.
DeJoy, a Trump ally and major Republican donor, has been widely criticized by some politicians and postal workers who believe his cost cutting efforts are an attempt to slow election mail in an election where many will vote by absentee or mail-in ballots. Blumenthal said that Democrats and Republicans alike should be in favor of supporting the service through the $25 billion Delivering For America Act, because an attack of mail would impact all voters in his view. If passed, the bill would prohibit changes to the level of service in effect on January 1, 2020. It passed the House earlier this month on a bipartisan bias. Even if the bill passes the Senate, it is unlikely to get past President Trump, who has said he opposes the measure.
Blumenthal also wants the Postal Service to hire more full time and temporary workers this fall. The busy season typically starts around the holidays and election mail is expected to overwhelm post offices before the November general election.
The Senator added that he believes Americans should be able to have their votes counted if ballots are postmarked by election day. State law requires ballots to be received, not postmarked by election day to be counted.
Ali Oshinskie is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.