A Test Of Mail-In Voting

PJ Media posted an article yesterday about a test CBS News did to determine how successful voting by mail would be this November. Please follow the link to read the entire article. I am simply going to post the test results here.

The article reports:

The parameters of the test were simple and straightforward. CBS mailed 100 ballots to locations across Philadelphia in an experiment to see how long it took the ballots to arrive. A post office box was set up to receive the returned ballots.

A few days later, another 100 ballots were mailed to another 100 locations in the city. The results should frighten Democrats who claim they are all about “every vote being counted.”

A week after initial ballots were sent, most ballots appeared to be missing from the P.O. box.

“I don’t see anything back there for you,” a postal worker told Dokoupil when he received the mail. “That’s all I have back there right now.”

After asking for a manager and explaining the situation to them, the votes were found.

“They had them somewhere else,” the postal worker said.

…Out of the initial batch mailed a week earlier, 97 out of 100 votes had arrived. Three simulated persons, or 3% of voters, were effectively disenfranchised by mail by giving their ballots a week to arrive. In a close election, 3% could be pivotal.

Four days after mailing the second batch of mock ballots, 21% of the votes hadn’t arrived.

According to Postal Service recommendations, “voters should mail their return ballots at least one week prior to the due date.”

However, nearly half of all states still allow voters to request ballots less than a week before the election.

Democrats who are pushing this notion that a mail-in election won’t be any different from an in-person election should listen to the voters who are far more grounded in reality.

“I’m scared that it might get lost in the mail,” potential voter Kim Tucker said. “I just want to make sure that my vote is submitted, like, I see that it’s submitted, that it actually counts.”

The November election is shaping up to be the mother of all clusterfarks. At every level — federal, state, and local — election officials are sounding the alarm. The system was not built to handle 120 million mailed ballots. Processing and protecting those ballots is beyond the abilities of almost every state.

The article concludes:

The concern is not only over the integrity of the ballot. The avalanche of legal challenges to the results will almost certainly run for years and may even delay state and local legislatures from sitting.

Democrats will bring all of this on themselves. It’s a shame that the rest of us are going to suffer for their stupidity.

Stay tuned.

A Short And Sensible Piece Of Legislation From The House Of Representatives

The website of the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform posted an article today about a bill introduced into the House of Representatives by Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that would implement a modified six-day delivery schedule for the U. S. Postal Service and repeal reductions in military pensions made by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013.

The article reports:

“This legislation will restore Cost-of-Living Adjustments for our military retirees and not only replace the savings but nearly triple them– saving $17 billion over 10 years according to conservative USPS estimates,” said Chairman Issa.  “This common sense reform will help restore the cash-strapped Postal Service to long-term solvency and is supported by the President and key Congressional leaders in both chambers.”

USPS is forced to deliver paper mail, like bills and advertisements, six days a week by an unfunded mandate included in annual appropriations legislation. If the mandate is lifted, the Postmaster General has announced that USPS would modify its current delivery schedule to deliver packages 6 days a week and paper mail 5 days a week. Express and priority mail delivery would not change, and post offices would remain open on Saturdays.

Chairman Issa recently outlined the benefits of ending the unfunded mandate in a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.)

The text of the bill can be found at Congress.gov.

Thank  you, Representative Issa.

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Two Sides Of The Story

A friend at the post office told me today that the U. S. Post Office was actually doing ok, but that they are being crippled by a requirement of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 which states

Title VIII: Postal Service Retirement and Health Benefits Funding – Postal Civil Service Retirement and Health Benefits Funding Amendments of 2006 – (Sec. 802) Relieves the Postal Service of an obligation to contribute matching amounts to its employees’ civil service retirement. Provides for a mechanism and an amortization schedule regarding the handling of any surplus or supplemental liability of the Postal Service regarding the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. Transfers from the Postal Service to the Treasury certain retirement obligations related to military service of former Postal Service employees. Makes Office of Personnel Management (OPM) determinations on surplus or supplemental liability subject to PRC review if the Postal Service so requests.

(Sec. 803) Transfers responsibility for paying the government’s contribution of the health benefits of postal annuitants, effective in FY2017, from the Postal Service to the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund (established by this section) up to the amount contained in the Fund, with any remaining amount to be paid by the United States Postal Service.

Establishes in the Treasury the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, to be administered by OPM. Requires the Postal Service, beginning in 2007, to compute the net present value of the future payments required and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year, along with a schedule if annual installments which provides for the liquidation of any liability or surplus by 2056. Directs the Postal Service, for each year, to pay into the above Fund such net present value and the annual installment due under the amortization schedule. Makes OPM actuarial computations subject to PRC review.

(Sec. 804) Repeals a provision of the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003 related to the disposition of savings accruing to the Postal Service.

In English this states that the Post Office is forced to pay $5 billion a year of its revenue into federal accounts in order to cover future healthcare expenses for retirees.

In September 2011, PolitiFact posted a response to a union ad which repeated the charge that the $5 billion payment to the government was bankrupting the Post Office.

The article at PolitiFact points out:

In recent years, as Internet communication has increased, the number of pieces mailed has been in decline. For a few years, postal revenues were nevertheless stable, but then they too started to decline. Patrick Donahoe, the U.S. Postmaster, said recently that first-class mail is dropping at a rate of 7.5 percent a year. While the post office has made up for some losses through productivity increases, it hasn’t been able to make up enough.

PolitiFact concludes:

The postal unions’ ad blames financial problems on “a 2006 law that drains $5 billion a year from post office revenue, while the Postal Service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts.” The ad is right that the law did require payments of approximately that amount and that those payments have had a significant effect on the post office’s bottom line. The additional overpayments are subject to debate. Even so, the law is hardly the only challenge the post office faces; it’s also facing continuing declines in first-class mail. So we rate the ad’s claim Half True.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… On November 16, the Courier Express and Postal Observer posted a story saying that Senator Joseph Lieberman and Representative Darrell Issa are negotiating a postal reform bill. That bill would include the re-amortization of the remaining payment schedule for health care benefits. There are some other things included in the bill that would help the Post Office’s bottom line.

Again, funding healthcare expenses for retirees ahead of time is a good idea. Not funding them results in unfunded liabilities, which have become the downfall of many cities and towns in America. However, such funding needs to be done in a way that does not put the people doing the funding out of business. Hopefully a compromise will be reached that will keep the Post Office going.

I realize that email and other electronic gadgetry have had a negative impact on the Post Office, but some of us are still old-fashioned enough to enjoy a short walk to the mailbox to see what has arrived. I am also partial to real Christmas cards–not electronic ones!

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