Biaggi sues Trump and USPS
Lawsuit aims to ensure postal service can handle mail-in voting this November
BY JASON COHEN
As postal boxes are being
removed from New York City
and a Trump donor is implementing
drastic changes to the
postal service, many are worried
about what this means
for mail-in voting during the
upcoming election.
President Donald Trump
has refused to give the postal
service a fi nancial boost, saying
mail-in voting would be catastrophic,
which has angered
many people, including Senator
Alessandra Biaggi.
On Aug. 17 Biaggi and NY-
17 Congressional Candidate
Mondaire Jones fi led a lawsuit
against the president, the USPS
and Postmaster General Louis
DeJoy. The lawsuit alleged that
the defendants had violated the
constitution and demanded
that the court grant an injunction
and take all steps necessary
to ensure that the USPS is
adequately funded so that there
are no policies preventing the
delivery of election mail, provide
suffi cient staff and overtime
and treat mail in ballots as
equal to in-person ballots.
“Amid a global, once-in-acentury
pandemic, USPS has
become all the more important
to the basic functioning of
our economy: with the risks of
gathering voters in one place,
indoors, to wait online and all
touch the same election machinery,
most states have expanded
vote by mail alternatives to
keep their citizens safe,” the
lawsuit stated. “Against this
background, President Donald
J. Trump and his newly appointed
Postmaster General
Louis DeJoy have set about to
ensure USPS cannot reliably
deliver election mail.”
With the election just two
and half months away, the need
for mail-in voting is crucial due
to COVID-19.
“Changing the quality of
USPS services in the middle of
this election cycle will predictably
and irreparably harm everyone
involved, to say nothing
of the damage it will cause
to the integrity of the election
itself,” the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit pointed out that
all Americans should be able
to cast their ballot to vote no
matter where they are. In fact,
for the NYC June 23 Primary,
the USPS delivered 30,000 absentee
BRONX TIMES R 14 EPORTER, AUG. 28-SEPT. 3, 2020 BTR
ballots to the Board
of Elections.
However, recent changes by
DeJoy have caused an outrage
throughout the country. These
changes include:
• keeping the mail for the
next day if plants run
late eliminating USPS
overtime
• allowing carriers to
only four “park points”
where a letter carrier
parks a truck, delivers
some amount of mail on
foot and then returns
to the truck on their
routes
• requiring carriers to
return from their mail
routes on time even if
they have not fi nished
their deliveries
• a USPS hiring freeze
• a new program called
“Expedited to Street/
Afternoon Sortation,”
which sends letter carriers
out to deliver mail
quicker in the morning
prohibiting them from
sorting before they go.
These new rules will drastically
impact the incoming election,
as an unprecedented 76
percent of Americans can vote
by mail. However, since the fi ling
of the lawsuit, DeJoy announced
these changes will not
take place until after the election.
“These are changes aimed
at changing the entire culture
of the USPS,” said the National
President of the Postal Workers
Union Mark Dimondstein. “The
culture I grew up with and generations
before me is that you
never leave mail behind.”
Furthermore, these regulations
break with past USPS practices
in implementing changes,
where in the past it consulted
unions and industry groups
prior to making changes.
In fact, according to the lawsuit,
the USPS has removed or
destroyed 671 sorting machines
across the country since June
and plans to get rid of more by
the end of the year.
As of Aug. 14, the USPS capacity
to sort mail has been reduced
by more than 21.4 million
pieces of mail per hour.
President Trump has also
been involved in the process.
Trump’s Deputy Campaign
Manager Justin Clark
said “The president views
vote by mail as a threat to
he election.”
Senator Biaggi
Photo via Biaggi4NY.com
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