Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has a message for America: The U.S. Postal Service is ready for a flood of election mail and is better equipped to do so than it was four years ago.
The Postal Service is undergoing rapid changes, including the opening of major hubs, but some of those changes are being put on hold ahead of the election to ensure they don’t disrupt performance, DeJoy said. And it will be all hands on deck to ensure the millions of mail ballots get to their destinations quickly.
“We’re going to be in good shape for the election. I’m very confident that we’re doing everything we can,” DeJoy told The Associated Press ahead of an official review of the mail-in ballot practices on Thursday. “The American people should have confidence in it.”
It’s a far cry from four years ago, when DeJoy, just months into the job, was criticized as a Donald Trump henchman who dismantled mail processing machines and removed blue mailboxes. undermine the elections like Trump, the president at the time, distrust sown in the Postal Service. Despite being lambasted, DeJoy’s Postal Service performed admirably under a flood of mail votes during the pandemic, and vigorously pushed back against what they called false claims of a deliberate attempt to damage the Postal Service before the 2020 election.
If there is one lesson learned from the painful experience, DeJoy said, it is that the Postal Service needs to get its message out more forcefully.
“We have to be louder than the noise in communicating how well we’re going to do and that everything is going to be OK. Everything is going to be OK. We’re in a better operational position than we’ve ever been,” he said.
U.S. Postal Service officials briefed reporters Thursday on measures being taken to ensure that election mail arrives where it is intended, building on the 2020 performance, when 97.9% of ballots were returned to election officials within three days, and in 2022, when 98.9% of mail was delivered within three days. DeJoy said he would like to get closer to 100% this election cycle.
The lack of drama is a welcome change from four years ago, when the Postal Service struggled with backlogs and allegations of voter suppression in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, which saw more than 135 million ballots mailed to and from voters.
DeJoy was criticized to limit overtime for postal workers and end the agency’s longstanding practice of allowing late and extra truck deliveries in the summer of 2020. And the previously planned dismantling of dozens of mail sorting machines and removal of blue boxes, which corresponded with a massive drop in First Class mail, provided additional fuel for critics. The Postmaster General, who was a major donor to Trump, it was thought that they were on thin ice, especially with the election of Democratic President Joe Biden.
“It was sensational. It scared the American people to death,” DeJoy said.
Looking back on that period, he said the allegations were “just crazy” and especially frustrating because he was working seven days a week after taking over an organization that would run out of money within 60 days.
“We got through that. The organization performed exceptionally well. After that, I started working with both sides of the aisle. My main mission now is to make this place better. And we made this place better,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, a frequent critic of changes under DeJoy, said Thursday he is confident that Postal Service workers “will ensure that every vote cast by mail is delivered safely and securely.” But the Virginia Democrat also said oversight is important and that “Congress must remain vigilant about decisions made by the postmaster general in the days leading up to this election.”
The Postal Service continues with a 10-year, $40 billion postal service modernization plan in which it is renovating aging facilities, opening modern regional hubs in Georgia, Virginia, Oregon and elsewhere, and beginning the process of purchasing 100,000 vehicles to replace older delivery trucks that date back to 1987. The next-generation delivery vehicle was on display Thursday at a separate event in Indiana aimed at promoting the Postal Service’s investments.
The Postal Service has also shown that it can make adjustments when it comes to a criticized plan to reroute mail processing in the Reno, Nevada, area to Sacramento, California, has been abandoned, which caused great outrage among the residents of Northern Nevada.
If there’s one thing the public can do to help, DeJoy said, it’s to avoid procrastination when it comes to mailing in ballots. “Vote early! If you’re using the mail, help us out,” he said.