The postal workers’ union has submitted a new brief to the Supreme Court that paints a picture of a Postal Service that will struggle to successfully implement the Executive Order and rule change on vote-by-mail if the Supreme Court removes the stay.
The filing, an Amicus Curiae brief, was submitted to the Supreme Court as it considers whether to uphold or discard a federal court in Massachusetts’ stay on the rule.
The APWU has unique expertise in the workplace demands and job functions of postal clerks, often at odds with unjustified orders of postal management [… ] The record in this case does not currently include information about the operational feasibility of implementing the Final Rule on short notice, and this brief is intended to fill that gap.
The union brief goes on to argue that, aside from the negative impact of the rule itself, and its illegality, the Postal Service is in no position to implement a new system on the fly, less than two months from an election.
The brief points out that the system required to implement the order would be a total departure from current USPS practice because: “This is the first time the APWU is aware of that the Postal Service has chosen not to accept properly-posted, nonhazardous, government mail because the Postal Service cannot validate the addressee.”
The Postal Service will rely on a portal to verify that ballot mail complies with the rules and, as the recent whistleblower announcement shows, that portal has a high chance of failure.
An enormous number of postal clerks in facilities nationwide would be needed to implement the Final Rule’s restrictions on mail ballot acceptance. These postal clerks cannot realistically be trained in the operation of the Ballot Portal in the short time before the November elections.
This training would have to be provided to clerks with different job classifications in vastly different facilities across the country. 572 Business Mail Entry Units currently accept all bulk mail and correct postage where mailers have made mistakes. Ballot mail could also be received at thousands of Post Offices and smaller Remotely-Managed Post Offices. These facilities include 1,300 Bulk Mail Clerks and Technicians, 7,550 Lead Clerks, 50,638 Sales and Services/Distribution Associates, and 5,616 PSE Sales & Services Distribution Associates. That means the Postal Service would have to train more than 65,000 workers on how to use the portal, with no obvious plan, materials, or time to make it happen.
While there are clear and obvious problems with mail at the Business Mail Entry Units, the rule would put a particular strain on Post Offices that receive election mail:
Today, when ballots arrive in bulk at a post office, they are not scanned individually. Postal clerks work tirelessly to ensure that mail received on a given day is placed in an outgoing truck the same day; this is especially true for ballots. If, however, clerks must scan ballots individually or in large numbers to verify them in the Portal, the volume of mail ballots will necessarily mean that some ballots – especially those received late in the day – will not make the last outgoing truck.
The best outcome is for this rule to be abandoned altogether. It is an attack on vote-by-mail and the very reputation of our public Postal Service. Postal workers will work night-and-day to make sure people’s ballots get to their destination whatever happens because their commitment is to democracy overall.
In the meantime, you can help by sending a message to the USPS Board of Governors. The Governors have the power to stop this, but they have refused to act. They need to hear from us.