LOST IN THE MAIL BY JORDAN GREEN

LOST IN THE MAIL Is new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy hitting the self-destruct button on democracy?

BY JORDAN GREEN

The Wisconsin primary election on April 7 was the first in the United States after the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the nation, leading to business and school shutdowns as people adjusted to limit inperson encounters to slow the spread of the virus.

Requests for absentee ballots, also known as mail-in ballots, shot up to 1.3 million, a 440% increase over the last presidential primary in April 2016, the Wisconsin Election Commission reported.

Inevitably, there were hiccups.

Three tubs of absentee ballots from 749 voters in Appleton and Oshkosh were found at the US Postal Service’s (USPS) Milwaukee Processing & Distribution Center after the election. Thousands of ballots requested two weeks before the election were never delivered to voters.

Almost 400 ballots mailed in by voters did not receive postmarks, forcing election officials to confer with the Postal Service to determine whether they should be counted.

The troubled Wisconsin primary prompted the Office of the Inspector General at the USPS to issue a recommendation on June 7 that the agency “develop and implement an action plan with timelines to address the potential national issues (ballot deadlines, postmarks, tracking technology, political and election mail coordinator outreach) identified in this report.”

A week later, Louis DeJoy, a Greensboro businessman and political fundraiser who has reportedly contributed more than $1.2 million to the Trump Victory Fund, took the helm of the agency through appointment by its Board of Governors with a very different preoccupation.

Reflecting on his first eight weeks on the job during remarks to the USPS Board of Governors on Aug. 7, DeJoy said the agency is in a “dire” financial position due in part to “a broken business model,” and vowed to rein in costs and bring efficiency to the organization.

Since mid-July, congressional Democrats have “If mail ballots arrive late and are uncounted, been raising concerns about the Postal Services’ some voters may be disenfranchised,” they warned. commitment to returning mail-in ballots with While DeJoy has been implementing operational mounting alarm, while observing operational changes at the Postal Service that Democratic changes at the agency that are resulting in clearly lawmakers fear will compromise the integrity of discernible slowdowns in service. the balloting, President Trump has been actively

In a July 16 letter to DeJoy, five US senators, led undermining public confidence in mail-in voting. by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, noted that In late May, Trump falsely tweeted that California mail-in ballots cast in the Pennsylvania primary — a would send absentee ballots to “anyone in the state,” including “people that aren’t citizens.” “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” he wrote. “Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed.” And in late July, the president escalated his false and alarmist rhetoric with a tweet predicting that “2020 will be the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history” because of mail-in voting, while making the u n p re ce d e nte d suggestion that the LOUIS DEJOY WAS NAMED POSTMASTER GENERAL IN JUNE. election should be PHOTO BY DAVID SIQUEIROS delayed. Absenteecritical swing state in the November election — leapt ballot fraud has marred some elections in the past, from 80,000 in 2018 to more than 500,000 in 2020. including the 2018 contest in North Carolina’s 9th

“The success of mail voting is dependent [on] a Congressional District, in which the NC Board of number of federal, state and local entities working Elections threw out the results after a political in coordination,” they wrote. “Election officials face operative harvested fraudulent ballots to benefit the difficult challenge of planning the administration the Republican candidate. But Richard L. Hasen, an of this upcoming election — including arranging elections expert at the University of California Irvine, election mailings, sending ballots to voters on told the Associated Press that fraud is “extremely time, setting deadlines to mail back ballots, and rare” in five states that already relied primarily coordinating with the Postal Service to meet its on mail-in voting before the pandemic, including requirements — with increasingly strained budgets. heavily Republican Utah.

A Greensboro Power Couple

Louis DeJoy and his wife, Dr. Aldona Wos, are longtime Republican Party patrons in North Carolina, with a history of largesse and a trail of politicians keen to receive their favor.

A native New Yorker, DeJoy moved his company New Breed Logistics to High Point in the 1990s, building it into an organization with 70 distribution centers and 7,000 employees before selling it for $615 million to XPO Logistics in 2014. Befitting DeJoy’s status as a new commercial baron and the couple’s budding stature as political movers, they paid $5.9 million in 2005 for a mansion in Greensboro’s Irving Park neighborhood that was originally built in 1934 for textile executive Herman Cone.

In May 2019, DeJoy was named the national finance chairman for CLT Host 2020, making him the lead fundraiser for the local organizing committee behind the Republican National Convention. Wos, however, was the first of the two to build a political reputation, landing a position as North Carolina finance co-chair for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, propelling her into an ambassadorship to Estonia after he won.

The daughter of a father who served in the Polish Home Army during World War II and survived a German concentration camp, Wos maintains a strong interest in national security and serves as a trustee of the Washington-based Institute of World Politics, a graduate school for young people interested in national security and diplomacy. Her relationship with the institute provided her with the opportunity to arrange an appearance by founder John Lenczowski and former CIA Director James Woolsey at the Grandover Resort in Greensboro in 2016.

Throughout the past 15 years Wos and DeJoy have hosted one high-profile visitor after another: a mid-term election fundraiser featuring President Bush at their Irving Park home in 2006; an early campaign stop by then-presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani at NC A&T in 2007; a 2017 fundraiser at their home for President Trump. Following the same trajectory as she did in the Bush years, Wos went from a fundraiser to an appointment to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships in the Trump administration. In March, Trump appointed Wos ambassador to Canada, a post that is awaiting Senate confirmation.

In between Bush and Trump terms, Wos also got involved in North Carolina politics, co-chairing Republican Pat McCrory’s campaign for governor. In 2013, he tapped her to lead the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Wos’ tenure at NC DHHS from 2013 through

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE Strains on an Already Struggling System Less than three weeks into DeJoy’s tenure, the country, especially in those jurisdictions where face covering and other social distancing policies are While the Postal Service’s financial challenges are widely acknowledged — the agency ran a postal handlers and carriers began receiving orders not strictly enforced, are worsening at a disturbing loss of $9 billion in fiscal year 2019, according to 2015 bears an uncanny resemblance to the to curtail costs, even if it meant sacrificing prompt rate,” Hogrogian wrote. “This means the crisis is far DeJoy — many Democrats and progressives argue emerging contours of DeJoy’s leadership at the delivery. An internal document originally published from over. The numbers are getting worse; they are that its instability was structurally mandated when USPS. While DeJoy told the US Postal Service Board by the Washington Post entitled “Mandatory Standnot getting better. There is no real end in sight.” the Republican-controlled Congress passed a 2006 of Governors on Aug. 7 that the organization suffers Up Talk: All Employees — Pivoting for Our Future” Hogrogian bluntly appraised the consequences law requiring the service to pre-fund employees’ from a “broken business model,” Wos inaugurated instructed employees that starting July 10, extra of the changes. post-retirement healthcare costs 75 years into the her tenure at DHHS in January 2013 by declaring trips and late trips would no longer be authorized. “Most processing plants are already extremely future. The timing of DeJoy’s arrival at the agency that the state’s Medicaid program was “broken.” “One aspect of these changes that may be understaffed,” he wrote. “Eliminating or even reducing and his insistence on slashing costs to realign the When she resigned from the post 32 months later, difficult for employees is that — temporarily — we overtime can only result in increased delays in the organization just four months before the election she took pride in noting that the Medicaid program may see mail left behind on the workroom floor or processing and delivery of mail and packages, including hasn’t been lost on Democratic lawmakers. was $130.7 million in the black. docks…,” the document says. “We will address root critical items such as prescriptions and election materials.” “While these changes in a normal year would

Wos’ leadership at DHHS and her husband’s be drastic,” wrote Rep. Carolyn stewardship of the USPS both Maloney (D-NY), who chairs the emphasize fiscal solvency over House Oversight and Reform service to the public. In Wos’ Committee, along with three case, the collateral damage other House Democrats, “in a was substantial. In her first presidential election year when year at the agency, thousands many states are relying heavily of food-assistance recipients on absentee mail-in ballots, were left waiting sometimes increases in mail delivery up to 30 days for benefits timing would impair the ability because of a glitch in the NC of ballots to be received and FAST system, prompting federal counted in a timely manner — officials to threaten to withdraw an unacceptable outcome in a funding. That same year, DHHS free and fair election.” rolled out its new NCTracks Medicaid management and Unconstitutional sabotage billing system, and hundreds Louis DeJoy’s history of healthcare providers found of building a profitable themselves unable to get paid transportation and logistics for their services. company and President Trump’s

In her quest to reposition well-documented disdain for DHHS, Wos turned to the the USPS has led to speculation private sector, hiring Joe that DeJoy’s function as Hauck, vice president for sales postmaster general is to and marketing for New Breed privatize the organization. Logistics — her husband’s company — as a consultant. POST OFFICE BOXES IN UPTOWN WERE LOCKED AND BLOCKED WITH TRASH BAGS DURING THE RNC. PHOTO: OFFICE OF ALMA ADAMS At least some of Trump’s derision for the Postal Service The $310,000 contract for 11 causes of these delays and adjust the very next day.” The slowdown was already apparent in New appears to be a byproduct of his grudge against Jeff months of work was one among a series of contracts Another memo first reported by the Post Jersey by July 21, when Rep. Andy Kim, a Democrat, Bezos, the owner of Amazon. In May, Trump insisted that prompted a federal grand jury investigation. indicated that overtime would be prohibited. wrote to DeJoy in a letter obtained by Queen City that the USPS raise its charges for shipping four to Wos defended her hire of Hauck in a memo to state The operational changes came at a time when Nerve: “Many of my constituents have rightly five times the current rate in exchange for a $10 lawmakers that credited him with a plan to realize the workforce at the Postal Service was buffeted by contacted my office to express frustration and billion loan from the US government. Raising rates, savings in payments to nonprofits, expanding challenges from COVID-19. In a July 23 letter to his concern about ongoing mail delivery delays, some critics of the administration point out, might have the Office of the Internal Audit, and created a membership, National Postal Mail Handlers Union of whom have not received their medications and the opposite effect of punishing Amazon because it plan to recruit and retain state-level employees President Paul Hogrogian said 3,267 postal workers first-class mail for more than three days.” would make the Postal Service less competitive. at psychiatric hospitals to reduce the agency’s had tested positive for COVID-19, more than double By early August, members of the Illinois delegation “The Postal Service is a joke because they’re dependency on temporary workers. the number from a month earlier. Out of 630,000 informed DeJoy that they had received reports “of handing out packages for Amazon and other internet

When Wos resigned her post, far from being people employed by the Postal Service, 75 had individuals going up to two weeks without mail delivery companies and every time they bring a package, displeased, Gov. McCrory famously wept, and perished from COVID. in some Chicago neighborhoods,” and the Philadelphia they lose money on it,” Trump told reporters in the praised her by saying she “took all the hits, took all “While the numbers in the Northeast and East Inquirer reported that some residents in the region Oval Office. the bullets.” continue to improve, the numbers in other parts of hadn’t received packages and letters in three weeks. Meanwhile, Wos and DeJoy’s holdings raise

NEWS & OPINION FEATURE do everything we can to deliver election mail in a timely manner consistent with our operational Sen. Gary C. Peters of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and institution’s promise of ‘safe and speedy transit of the mail’ and ‘prompt delivery of its contents.’” standards.” He added that “despite any assertions to Governmental Affairs Committee, announced an She was not any more comforted by DeJoy’s questions about whether the new postmaster the contrary, we are not slowing down election mail investigation into Postal Service delays on Aug. 6. answers when she questioned him about reports general has a conflict of interest: Wos’ financial or any other mail.” Evidence was not hard to find: On the same day, Sen. that Postal Service drop-off boxes were being taken disclosure filings with the Office of Government Ethics DeJoy’s comments did little to assuage the Angus King (I-Maine), informed Peters by letter: off the streets or locked during a meeting of the as part of her nomination for the ambassadorship concerns of Democratic lawmakers; if anything, “Some postal employees in Maine express concern House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Aug. to Canada revealed that the couple holds between his rollout of an organizational restructuring only about USPS’s ability to handle the anticipated crush 24. $30.1 million and $75.3 million in assets with Postal antagonized him. As part of the restructuring, of mail we expect from the general election. They “The recurring theme I kept hearing from Service competitors or contractors, including XPO the Postal Service implemented an immediate report that they feel personally responsible but Postmaster General DeJoy was ‘I don’t know’,” said Logistics — the company that acquired New Breed management hiring freeze and voluntary early institutionally unsupported for their role in the Congresswoman Adams in a release following the — and trucking company JB Hunt, according to the retirement, while consolidating management into health of our democracy. (We can share more details meeting. “He doesn’t know how many blue boxes Washington Post. three operating units: logistics and processing confidentially with staff to protect the individuals were taken. He doesn’t know why our Veterans are

On Aug. 7, the same day that Sen. Elizabeth operations, retail and delivery operations, and who have come forward, or we can put investigators getting their medications late, or why goods that Warren (D-Mass.) and eight other lawmakers commerce and business solutions. in direct contact with constituents.)” our small businesses rely on are arriving spoiled. asked the Postal Service Inspector General to open Two days before the announced restructuring, On Aug. 8, the morning after the announced He doesn’t know the cost of Priority Mail or the an investigation into DeJoy’s kind of stamp he needs to mail personal finances, the new a postcard. He doesn’t know postmaster general directly if his own mail is coming. denied in remarks to his Board The fact is: He just don’t of Governors that he was either know. Unfortunately for us, beholden to Trump or planning Mr. Postmaster General, not to privatize the organization. knowing is not good enough.”

“I was not appointed by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) the Governors to position the was even more eviscerating. Postal Service to be privatized “DeJoy’s secret removal or to manage its decline,” DeJoy of the senior officials who run said in remarks published by the the day-to-day operations at Postal Service. “To the contrary, USPS lays bare his mission to I accepted the job of postmaster centralize power, dismantle the general fully committed to the agency and degrade service in role of the Postal Service as order to thwart vote-by-mail an integral part of the United across the nation to aid Trump’s States government, providing reelection efforts,” DeFazio said. all Americans with universal “This November, an historic and open access to our unrivaled number of citizens will vote by processing and delivery mail in order to protect their network.” health and safety during the

As to Trump, DeJoy said, COVID-19 pandemic. DeJoy’s “While I certainly have a good nefarious collection efforts will relationship with the president suppress millions of mail-in of the United States, the notion CONGRESSWOMAN ALMA ADAMS OF CHARLOTTE HAS STOOD FIRM AGAINST DEJOY’S USPS SABOTAGE. PHOTO: OFFICE OF ALMA ADAMS ballots and threaten the voting that I would ever make decisions rights of millions of Americans, concerning the Postal Service at the direction of the DeJoy had met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and organizational restructuring at the Postal Service — setting the stage for a breach of our Constitution.” president, or anyone else in the administration, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Referencing characterized by some as a “Friday night massacre” is wholly off-base. I serve at the pleasure of the the elimination of overtime and restrictions on extra — some Democratic lawmakers reacted with fury, ‘Vote by mail is tanked’ governors of the Postal Service, a group that is mail transportation trips, Schumer and Pelosi called calling for DeJoy’s resignation or removal. Like DeJoy, Mark Dimondstein comes from bipartisan by statute and that will evaluate my on DeJoy to reverse the changes. “The United States Postal Service was Greensboro, where he worked as a clerk prior to his performance in a nonpartisan fashion.” “We believe these changes, made during the established by our Constitution, and this year it will 2013 election as president of the 200,000 member

DeJoy also denied that he was trying to sabotage middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, now play an unprecedented role in guaranteeing our American Postal Workers Union. Dimondstein told the election by slowing down delivery of the mail. threaten the timely delivery of mail — including right to vote,” Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC) of Charlotte Triad City Beat he’s not particularly concerned about

“The Postal Service and I are fully committed medicines for seniors, paychecks for workers, and said in a press release. “However, Postmaster the managerial reorganization at the top, and his to fulfilling our role in the electoral process,” DeJoy absentee ballots for voters — that is essential to DeJoy continues his unconstitutional sabotage of preoccupations are elsewhere. told his board. “If policymakers choose to utilize millions of Americans,” they wrote. our Postal Service with complete disregard for the “What I’m focused on from last Friday is that the mail as part of their election system, we will

neither the Postal Service Board of Governors nor the postmaster general advocated or asked that Congress provide the Post Office with appropriate COVID relief,” Dimondstein told Queen City Nerve. He added that since the Postal Service is ordinarily funded through revenue generated from users, it would be appropriate for taxpayers to foot the bill for a one-time injection of COVID relief funding for the benefit of the American people.

The Democratic-controlled House approved $25 billion in funding for the Postal Service in June as part of the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions, or HEROES Act, but the White House and the House Democrats were unable to come to an agreement on a second round of COVID relief spending. Instead, on Aug. 8, President Trump signed a series of executive orders to address the COVID crisis that did not include aid to the Postal Service.

While the integrity of the election is a particular concern for Democrats, lawmakers from both parties have raised alarm that slowing down the mail undermines constituents’ ability to obtain life-saving medications during the pandemic.

In an Aug. 8 letter, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) urged DeJoy “to reverse recent policies impacting delivery times and to call your attention to concerns raised by my constituents.

“Montanans from across the state have contacted me to express their alarm by these orders, including your July 10, 2020 directive to hold late mail until the next day, and the resulting delays in mail delivery,” Daines wrote. “This action, if not rescinded, will negatively impact mail delivery for Montanans and unacceptably increase the risk of late prescriptions, commercial products, or bill delivery.”

Rural, sparsely populated states like Montana, which tend to elect Republican representatives, have a special stake in maintaining the Postal Service.

“For many,” Daines reflected, “the unforgiving climate and terrain paired with the shortage of pharmacies [in Montana] makes the continuity of USPS an existential necessity.”

On July 29, DeJoy and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin reached an agreement with DeJoy for the US government to extend $10 billion in credit to the Postal Service, allowing the organization to avoid running out of cash at the end of September and to continue operating through May 2021.

DeJoy could not be reached for this story, but Philip Bogenberger, a Postal Service spokesperson, said in an email to Queen City Nerve on Monday that the organization’s “financial condition is not going to impact our ability to process and deliver election and political mail. The Postal Service has ample capacity to adjust our nationwide processing and delivery network to meet projected election and political mail volume, including an additional volume that may result as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.” Bogenberger’s assurance came with caveat. He said the Postal Service “strongly recommends that election officials advise voters to request absentee ballots as soon as possible, but no later than 15 days prior to the election date — or Oct. 19 — and to mail them in at least a week before the election — or Oct. 27. He said the Postal Service plans to send a letter to election officials “in states that have deadlines for requesting and casting mail-in ballots that under our reading of their election laws appears to be incongruous with the Postal Service delivery standards.”

In a July 7 report on the misplaced ballots in the Wisconsin primary, the US Postal Service Office of the Inspector General warned: “States’ deadlines for voters to request absentee ballots are insufficient to ensure delivery before an election.” The report singled out 11

ARTWORK BY ROBERT PAQUETTE

states with no deadline or deadlines within three days of the election, including Minnesota and Ohio — considered critical swing states — along with New Hampshire, North Dakota, Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Montana, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. Ten other states, including Michigan and Wisconsin — also swing states — along with Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina, Alabama, Delaware, Illinois, Maine and Oregon have deadlines four to five days before the election. North Carolina requires that absentee ballots be received by the county board of elections seven days before the election, in keeping with the Postal Service’s stated delivery standards.

In response to the lost absentee ballots that plagued the Wisconsin primary, the Inspector General determined that some of the problems were caused by actors outside of the Postal Service. The report found that the tubs of absentee ballots from Appleton and Oshkosh were late because a third-party mailer held on to them for one day and didn’t present them to the Postal Service until 6 p.m. on primary election day. And the Inspector General said the

Milwaukee Election Office determined there was a computer glitch on March 22, resulting in almost 2,700 requested ballots that were never sent to voters.

But the Inspector General report contains no explanation for why 390 completed ballots were returned without postmarks, except to note that the Postal Service worked with the election office and determined the validity of all but 40 of them. The report went on to say that the Postal

Service’s official guidance states that all ballots should be postmarked by machine or hand, and the district manager for the Lakeland area plans to communicate with all employees to clarify their roles and responsibilities.

Whether errors are made by the Postal

Service, election officials or third-party contractors, it’s not hard to imagine that delays could result in outright disenfranchisement — or fabricated claims by Trump and his supporters that the election is being stolen as local election offices wait weeks to retrieve lost ballots.

With COVID-19 cases on the rise again, advocates for a full and fair vote might echo the

Postal Service’s official recommendation: Put in your request for an absentee ballot and get it in the mail as early as possible. But the view from those working within the organization at the ground level is not so straight-forward. “This election is going to suck,” a personnel processing specialist at the Postal Service’s human resources center in Greensboro told Queen City Nerve, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of losing their job. “Vote by mail is tanked … [you should] vote in person. If you are lucky to live in the city, it will be COVIDprotocol controlled. Lines out the door if you can afford to take off work. I, along with many of my friends, are so worried. Ugh.”